AUSTRALIA is huge. “No kangaroo s**t, Sherlock!” I hear you say.
But until you’re at the wheel of a motorhome in Perth, Western Australia, with a 350-page road atlas on your lap and the open road ahead, you don’t quite grasp the enormity.
9
Sydney is 2,446 miles to the east, Darwin 2,516 miles to the north, Antarctica 5,000 miles to the south — Perth is one of the most remote cities in the world.
Even with a fully equipped motorhome, these distances seemed ambitious, so we headed south to investigate the vast South West corner of this beautiful country.
We were following part of the Caravan and Motorhome Club’s Western Wanderer route.
This 23-day independent tour sees the experts take care of all the organisation — from flights to the motorhome hire — and you get to enjoy exploring safe in the knowledge you’ve got the best support.
9
We were already well acclimatised to Aussie life having spent three days in Sydney, climbing to the top of the famous Harbour Bridge, sipping cocktails outside the Opera House and strolling along Bondi Beach at sunset.
The Club will happily arrange all this for you if you want to add it to your itinerary.
We had also spent three nights in Perth enjoying a pre-arranged tour of Perth and Fremantle and a day trip to Rottnest Island that is included with the Western Wanderer package.
Rottnest, 11 miles off the Perth coast, is home to 10,000 quokkas — the cutest mini-marsupials you’ll see.
With all these experiences under our belt, we were ready to hit the open road.
9
As you leave the high-rise hotels and offices of Perth you slip quickly into the green fields and rolling hills of Margaret River.
It wasn’t what I’d been expecting. Where was the bush? Where were the miles of desert? It looked like Kent!
Turns out this corner of Oz gets a lot of winter rain and is very green as a result.
We were heading to our first campsite at Cowaramup, a few miles from the town of Margaret River. We arrived just as the last glimmer of sun disappeared over the horizon.
The friendly staff at the site met us like long-lost relatives and gave us a full itinerary, a hand-drawn map of local highlights and, best of all, two tickets to a full-day wine, beer, chocolate and cheese tour for the following day.
9
The tour was brilliant, we were picked up in a minibus at 10am and we were sipping our first Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc at 11am followed by a Cab Sav two minutes later.
Lunch was an interesting mix of kangaroo, crocodile and other local delicacies served on the bank of a man-made lake at the Knotting Hill winery.
The next day we followed the route on the hand-drawn map. We left the rolling hills of Margaret River and headed along the south coast and through the Southern Forest.
The road wound though enormous gum trees that rose hundreds of metres above us.
9
The Big 4 Middleton Beach campsite at Albany was excellent and a one-minute walk from the beach.
Albany is famous for spotting migrating whales but the best way to get up close is to go out on a boat. We headed out on a large catamaran.
The first hour was disappointing but two minutes later, our skipper John shouted that he’d seen a spout of water up ahead.
Sure enough, three humpback whales were in the bay. We spent the next few hours coasting along beside these magnificent animals.
9
We left Albany and drove along the coast road to our next stop at Esperance. We were now getting used to the Australian concept of “just down the road”.
We asked at the campsite in Esperance how to get to Lucky Bay.
“It’s just down the road,” the lady said, then added something about 3km. “Excellent,” I thought, “It’s really close.”
9
Turns out the highway was 3km away and the beach was another 50km away!
It was worth it, though — the most beautiful beach of white sand and water the colour of a Bombay Sapphire Gin bottle.
Kangaroos live on the beach and my wife Gail wanted a picture of the yellow kangaroo warning sign by the side of the road.
Just as we stopped to take the pic, right on cue a family of three ’roos hopped across the empty road.
9
The Esperance coastal road has several more stunning beaches. Most were deserted when we were there.
The temperature was in the low 20s — far too cold for Aussies to remove their hats and scarves.
Our final two stops on the trip were inland. We were finally heading to the outback, where we would see the Australia of my imagination — miles of dusty desert and arrow-straight roads.
Kalgoorlie was the centre of the gold rush in Western Australia. It’s home to one of the world’s biggest open cast gold mines.
In keeping with everything else in Oz, the mine is HUGE — the biggest hole in the ground in the world.
The trucks are huge, the diggers are huge, the digger buckets are the size of a minibus. You can peer into the mine from an observation deck.
9
The last stop was Wave Rock, a 50ft high and 360ft long lump of granite, eroded over millions of years into the shape of a breaking wave.
It’s an amazing sight — especially at sunset and sunrise. The sun gives the rock a warm red glow.
Our campsite was a 30-second walk from the rock so it was worth getting up at sunrise to see it.
Sadly, our holiday wave was hitting the beach now too. We’d flown cross-country and driven more than 2,000 miles, swam in two oceans, seen emus, kangaroos and whales in the wild, tasted amazing wines, travelled along coasts and across the outback — but we’d only covered SEVEN PAGES of the road atlas!
Are we coming back to do the other 343 pages? No kangaroo s**t, Sherlock!
GO: OZ CAMPING
GETTING THERE/STAYING THERE: The Caravan & Motorhome Club’s 23-day Western Wanderer tour is from £2,599pp including return flights, motorhome hire with unlimited mileage, insurance and living essentials, 17 nights’ pre-booked campsites, three-night Perth B&B hotel stay with city tour and Rottnest Island tour and transfers.
See caravanclub.co.uk/overseas-holidays/tours/worldwide-tours/australia/western-wanderer.
