SA-Baird Bay seal and dolphin trip

Baird Bay is an isolated fishing village on the west coast, about 50klms south of where we were staying at Streaky. The Bay and its surrounds offer fishing, bush walking, bird watching, and the incredible opportunity to swim with dolphins and sea lions in their natural habitat.
We arrived at the modern rammed earth buildings that are the head quarters if the Ocean Eco Experience. We were fitted with wetsuits, walked out to the boat and headed with great excitement out to hopefully find the dolphins. Because we are out in the wild, seeing the dolphins is never gauranteed. But, it was our lucky day. As we were getting our snorkels on we watched Troy attach an electronic anklet which deters the sharks. The pulse is effective for eight metres. Wonder where I was when we were in the water? You guessed it. I was glued to Troy the entire time. Obviously sharks are attracted to seals and the dolphins and we were in their territory. There were about eight dolphins, including a mother and baby. One of the dolphins had a split dorsal fin and a nasty hollow on one side due to an old shark injury. They swam around us, upside down under us and coming in very close to check us out. When they decided to move on we headed to another area of the bay to see the seals.
When we arrived they were all lying on the rocks sunning themselves. Many of the babies were nursing while mum was fast asleep. Some of the young males were trying to wake up other seals to come and play. There is a large natural pool where the seals were swimming and we joined them. They come right up to you, wanting to play and I’m sure they are wondering why we are so sluggish in the water compared to them. They were swimming around us upside down and coming right up to our masks to have a “peek” inside. We ended up having about six swimming around us.
What an incredible experience. Thank you Trixie and Vic for telling us about this. I could certainly do it again, and again, and again.
We are so thankful to the dolphins and sea lions for allowing us to join them in their home under the waves and give us such a heart warming day.

Baird Bay Ocean Eco Experience
Ph: 08 8626 5017
website:www.bairdbay.com

Qld - Carnarvon Gorge

Where ever you go in the Gorge, there is always something interesting to see. This is one of the
first views of the Gorge that you see as you begin your walk. By the time you have reached the end of the full walk, you have crossed the Carnarvon Creek about 20 times.
At Ward's Canyon, which is at the end of one of the side gorges, is a colony of Queenslands only king ferns. The other colonies of these enormous ferns are along parts of the eastern Australian coast.

The Apostlebirds (also known as "happy jacks") live in extended family groups of between 8 and 16 birds. Only on or two of the group breed each season and the rest of the birds helping take care of the young. Sounds very civilised to me. They are around the camping area all the time and chatter continuously.


These pretty-face wallabies are quite small and were often around the camping areas. They are very cute to look at, you just want to pick one up and give it a cuddle.
We also saw a couple of echidnas on our walks as well as turtles and fish in the creeks.
A magical part of Australia.

Day 1, Sunday March 1st, 2009

We rented our home out for a year and after all the packing, cleaning of the house and loading of the van we pulled out of our driveway at 2:30p.m in the afternoon and headed for The Pines Caravan park at Belmont South. We booked a beautiful spot, Lot #80, right on the lake. We decided to spend a couple of weeks in local caravan parks to iron out any caravan issues that we may encounter before we hit the road. Having not had a caravan before we knew that we had a lot to learn. We chose the Pines as our first port of call as we had purchased the van from Five Star Caravans and Campers, just five minutes up the road.

If you have ever watched anybody pitch a tent, unfold a camper trailer or set up a caravan for the first time you are in for a good laugh. People get snappy with each other, the instructions are bought out again and again, and males and females often tend to have a different interpretation of the instructions. Usually a few choice words fly around and when everything is finally secure you can sit back with a liquid refreshment and laugh about the challenges you have just overcome.

As this was our first trial with the caravan, we were no different. We pulled into this perfect spot, unhooked the car and then started to put the stabilizers down to even out the van. We did the back ones first, then realized that we had the back sitting up too high and it was too low in the front so that we couldn’t get the front legs down. We then had to lower the back, re set the front and then the back again. All is good. We then noticed that the back is quite high so we’ll need a step to get into it without stretching up to much so then the “list” begins. Mike is happy, he has a list already.

Now that we are all level, front and back and side to side, lets’ tackle the awning. Piece of cake. Boy how clever are we!. Out it comes, we add the side stabilizers, the front privacy awning and it all goes up without a hitch. You would never have thought that we were novices. Put down the rubber floor and we are nearly ready for our first beer. The slave driver that I am though, wouldn’t open the first one until the awning was pegged into the ground and the guide ropes tacked down and all is secure. Now we could have that beer.

We hooked up to the power and “voila” every thing works or so we thought until we checked the fridge and it wasn’t getting cold. We checked all the hidden cavities around the fridge, turned switches on, and off and still no cold, so the first phone call was to Five Star Campers. The very patient man on the phone ran Mike through the switches. All is OK, but it will take about half an hour to get cold. We just needed to be patient. In fact it works so well that before we went to bed we had ice.
Next challenge. Let’s hook up the water and the grey water pipe. The tap water hooks up fine but the grey water pipe is about six foot short of reaching the drain. Quick, grab the “list”, Mike has another addition.

We then realised that we had several keys. The car, the caravan, the toilet block in the park and nowhere to put the keys. Where is the “list”. We need hooks.

One of our daughters and family came to dinner and our youngest grand daughter Lily went into the toilet but didn’t know that Michael hadn’t put the chemicals and water in yet. It was rather funny as she comes out saying that she couldn’t flush the toilet. We all had a good laugh at her expense and so now Mike has to figure out how to get the cassette out to rinse it out. It didn’t come out as easily as expected so we had to find the instructions. Oh my God, where are the instructions? We had decided that the cupboard next to the door holds all our maps and paper work so it was just a mater of sifting through a pile of manuals to find the cassette manual. It is like all things, once you do it the first time it is a piece of cake.

We have spent the last couple of weeks learning how to be high tech no the road. We are now hooked up to Next G for our telephone and computer. It blows me away that you can stick a little box the size of your mobile phone into your computer and you can hook up to the internet and download your emails. Technology is amazing. Next step -learning how do load information onto our website. What a challenge that has been. To computer people - let's do it this way because it is really easy. To me it has been a very steep learning curve. Thank you so much Brandon at JHP Projects in Cessnock for your patience and helping me create what I had in my head. (Not an easy task)

What a great day. A momentous day for us. A day when we realised that this is IT. This is our life for at least the next year. Our life now consists of very little in the way of material things - eight wheels, an engine and a portable home.

It’s been a great day, I’m tired and hungry so lets go find a restaurant for dinner. We took a beautiful bottle of Tyrell’s Shiraz from our “cellar” under the bed ready for a special meal to celebrate our freedom. First night on the road and there’s no way that I’m cooking! We aren’t called the gourmet grey nomads for nothing.