Lauren, a Travellers Autobarn customer, just shared her great blog with us.

Roadtrip planning

Half term happens, you guessed it, halfway through term; this means you’ll have known your potential travel buddies for a month or so by the time you’re deciding who to travel with – scary stuff! The way to get round this is pretty obvious – arrange to travel with happy, chilled out people whose company you enjoy; get everyone involved in booking, planning, playing and arranging so that one person doesn’t end up feeling like they’ve done all the work and no one can complain that they’re not getting to go where they want. My group came about from all the people who wanted to roadtrip, but didn’t fancy driving too far and didn’t care too much about where they ended up. For us this meant not having much of a plan apart from a few key things we wanted to see and a very certain notion that we were not going to spend a whole week in the car. Other people drove a lot and even drove by night (which is dangerous due to kangaroo collision possibilities), but they went about 4 times as far as we did and saw almost the entire coast North of Perth. Both sets of people had tonnes of fun so just think about what suits you and what you want out of your trip. For me, having time to relax, laugh with my friends and chill out on beaches was as important as seeing the sites. In hindsight, it might have been sensible to have a more precise plan as we had to make a lot of spot decisions that often involved turning full circle in the middle of the, luckily quiet, roads!

Travel agents

We booked through STA Travel with a company called Travellers Autobarn (you can also buy a car here when you arrive in Australia and sell it back to them when you leave; if you want a car for the whole time, this is a pretty cheap way of doing it as long as you have the cash to spend now). Most people used STA to book a car, a Wicked Camper van or flights. Booking through STA suited us as there is one in the Guild Village where you can talk through all your options and make decisions with your group and all the facts. You also tend to get a few extras on car hire; ours came with a tent, sleeping bags, gas cooker and tonnes of other useful bits and pieces which was pretty useful. We ended up booking a station wagon which has seats 5 and a big boot, rather than campervans which are more expensive and fit less people. We ended up sleeping three of us in a 2-man tent, one in the passenger seat of the car and one across the back seat – it wasn’t incredibly comfortable, but we all managed and it worked out pretty cheap really.

Soundtrack

The Beach Boys ‘Greatest Hits’, The Drums ‘I Wanna go Surfing’, Red Hot Chilli Peppers ‘Road Trippin’’, any 80/90’s tunes and whatever weird rap your French friend brings along!

Packing

Nutella, bread, ice and eski (this means a cooler in Aussie. The New Zealanders call it a ‘chilly bin’ and they get laughed at!), speakers, lots of fully charged MP3’s, flip flops, decent shoes for walking, sun cream, sun hat, camera, banana chips, banana chips, other snacks, tonnes of water, surf board, wettie (wetsuit), quick-drying towel, cheap sunnies (someone will end up sleeping on them at some point!), tortellini (cooks so much faster than pasta!), apples, pasta sauce, tomato sauce (for BBQs), tortilla wraps, tea towels or kitchen roll. This is obviously a non-exhaustive list, but it has some things you might not think you need to bring and then wish you had!

Itinerary

I’m just going to try to list everywhere we went as a basic indication of how far we got, what there is to see up North and how long things take.

Friday: Despite people getting up to make it to Travellers Autobarn early,

Packing Surfboards!

the process of hiring is very slow with lots of form-filling, proving that you have understood your responsibilities and waiting for a million other people to do the same while chatting to all the people you’ve bumped into who are doing exactly the same as you for the week! Once we finally got the car we still had to drive round and pick up everyone and ALL their luggage! Two suggestions; pack light and, if you’re taking surfboards, make sure they’re in a bag and you have bought surf straps with padding to go between the roof and the boards – we used a rug and the noise it made bashing off the roof was horrendous!

By the time we got everything packed, pushed, squidged, strapped, seated and  were sure that the Norwegian girls were indeed capable of driving on the wrong (right for us) side of the road, we only had time to drive as far as Lancelin – the town nearest to WA’s famous Pinnacles. We checked into our first camp site, reversed the car into the owner’s van (honestly), set up camp and then raced to the beach to watch the last of the sunset. Yeah, apparently station wagons are significantly longer than normal cars and it’s pretty common to misjudge while reversing – you have been warned! Oh, and the dent we made in our car was so big that we couldn’t shut our boot properly and we had to tie it shut for the rest of the week. You can imagine how comfy that was with string and surfstraps hitting you in the face no matter where you sat!

Saturday: Early start for surfing and then a lovely fry-up. We then drove past the Pinnacles, turned round and drove past them again, before finally getting onto the long, red, dusty and very Australian road that led to into the Pinnacles National Park – you pay a certain amount for every vehicle you take in so squeeze everyone in to save cash. To be honest, the Pinnacles themselves under-whelmed me a little; the first glimpse is incredible and the few shaped like gnomes, wellie boots and wizard hats (and the many shaped like willies/penises) are quite cool to look at, but I think you really need to be able to wander and get lost in them to get the feel and unfortunately there’s a driving route through a lot of them so you have to walk miles to get away from cars and people and flashing cameras. I’d also say you have to go to the visitor’s centre to appreciate them. After Friday’s late start, though, we were keen to get on and we quickly left. Taking the road further North we passed some incredible dunes which had a handy nearby layby – you just cross the road, climb the first dune and suddenly you’re in a snow white world of rolling dunes and the softest sand ever. Just the sort of place that makes you run around, jump, climb, lose your thongs (flip-flops) and take awesome group photos!

Sunday: Lots of driving to reach Kalbarri. The driving of course broken up by randomly pulling off the road at pretty looking beaches to swim, tan and make Nutella sandwiches. I know we’re not all Europeans on these trips, but I don’t think anyone could have a problem with living off Nutella and bread for a week – definitely one of our roadtrip essentials. Our campsite at Kalbarri was just really enjoyable with friendly staff and an indoor kitchen perfect for teaching Highland Dancing in!

Monday: We made a trip to Kalbarri’s incredible National Park (again either a car fee or a nominal sum per person – nothing too expensive) to see Nature’s Window and the stunning red dirt landscape cut through with the biggest gorge I’ve ever seen. Genuinely one of those sights that just makes you realise you’re really in Australia and Australia really is huuuuuuge! The road in is another interesting dirt path and it was insanely steep – I’m not sure whether it was scarier going up or down! We took plenty of pictures then did the 8k Loop walk which takes you down into the gorge, along the river and up through the bushy/deserty/red dirt scenery. It wasn’t the easiest walk I’ve ever done… between climbing around an overhang right over the river, losing the path a few too many times and not having anything like enough water or appropriate equipment it probably wasn’t the best idea either. But the joy of walking through something so beautifully Australian, sweating buckets in the heat of the day and swatting away flies with the top you had to take off a few metres into the walk was just so much fun! It was really worth the effort to feel that you’d gotten out of the city and into the country properly – the walk was something you could easily miss if you were on a tight schedule, but for me it was one of the best things we did. I should recommend spending all day in the park and taking water, protective clothing, sturdy footwear, yummy snacks and avoiding the heat of the day, but I know you’ll do exactly the same thing as we did really!

Conquer Kalbarri!

We spent that evening at Jake’s Point in Kalbarri (having decided to spend two days in Kalbarri rather than moving on) watching the surfers go by on waves that can last up to 40 seconds. We made friends with an old guy who had clearly been your typical surfer all his life. He told us about the real surfing lifestyle and bemoaned the loss of good old crazy surf dudes who got on with each other and surfed places no one sensible ever would. He told us that a lot of the guys we were watching were sponsored and likely to do pretty well and that the reason the waves looked like something out of a surf movie is because Jake’s Point is quite often in them! When he got in the water, it was clear our dude had been surfing for so long he no longer needed to practice and it was all just about showing off to us and pissing off the people who he felt were taking it too seriously by doing 180’s on his board, surfing on one leg and finishing one wave off by lying on his back with his arms and legs in the air. There were too many waves and rocks about for us to surf at our level, but it was a beautiful place to watch the sun go down, have a hysterical game of Snap and head off for an early night.

Tuesday: We headed off early towards Denham in Shark’s Bay, a huge area protected for its incredible natural heritage (you can read about it all here). The first site we came to was the old Hamelin Pool Telegraph Station, which has been around for ages and reminds us how hard communicating with the far corners of Australia must have been. We didn’t bother to visit the museum, but Bill Bryson apparently highly recommends it and I would have gone if it wouldn’t have held anyone up. If you do go, let me know what it’s like! We moved onto to look at the Stromatolites, an example of the oldest living organisms on earth. They weren’t spectacular, but I found it quite interesting. If I’m honest though, unless you’ve got a particular reason to be interested by telegraph stations or stromatolites, most people would be happy to skip this part of Shark’s Bay’s Heritage Drive unless they fancied WWOOFing, having a delicious milk shake or checking out the walls in the café which was a very interesting museum in itself!

When we reached Denham, we got set up at a campsite and went for a walk to get some provisions for a barbeque we had decided to have at Little Lagoon. We met some of our friends in the shop which just shows you how many exchange students there must have been driving up and down the coast if we managed to bump into some in a tiny little supermarket in Denham (a town which doesn’t actually have any attractions itself, but is just a handy place to sleep if you want to see Shark’s Bay)! Little Lagoon was a little bit spectacular; it’s almost perfectly round and it’s just idyllic. You feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere, but it’s only a few miles from Denham and it has BBQ and toilet facilities. We attempted to go swimming, but found out that it stays shallow for at least a mile and, as we were leaving, that it has some organism living in it which means it’s best to wear shoes in the water… oops! We fired up our barbeque and ate by torchlight – I highly recommend eating your meat in wraps if you plan to do this to save on mess and also to never ever barbeque without capsicum (peppers) – they are just too delicious! Later that evening we met up with our friends at another campsite and had a mini exchange student reunion (it might be a good idea for you to arrange for this to happen rather than relying on luck) with card games, chats, songs, goon and star-gazing on the beach -  a pretty perfect evening really! O, and if you’re really confused by the things on the main street of Denham which look like they should be barbeques aren’t; they’re fish gutting sinks, and I don’t recommend getting up close and personal to find that out like my friend did!

Tuesday: Everyone from your housemate, to random tourists, to your camp site’s receptionist will remind you that if you want to see the dolphins at Monkey Mia, you have to go early! The wild dolphins arrive at the beach when the want to, a tradition that started when they knew they would get fed and now continues although their feeds are limited. They only get fed the first three times that they turn up after 8am, but this could be at 8, 8.15 and 8.30 or 10, 11.45 and 15.00, no one knows and so dolphin sighting is not guaranteed and everyone gets panicky! Our friends had been super-early the day before and, at 8am, there were no dolphins; after everyone left disappointed and the girls hung out on the beach to figure out what to do with the rest of their day, the dolphins did come and only a few people got to see them, which means they had a higher chance of getting to feed them. We got there before eight, saw three dolphins at almost exactly eight and watched the older one hunting and the younger one playing; we didn’t get picked to feed them and we left straight afterL. The best advice is to be there well before 8am and to stay for all three feeds no matter how long this takes. This means you have more chance of getting to feed the dolphins (this is the only way you get to interact with the dolphins and the right is given out completely randomly!) and you get to be there when there aren’t a million people lined up along the shore and the jetty and the viewing platform, because most people leave after the dolphin’s first arrival, which does tend to be early. I noticed while I was there that you can volunteer at Monkey Mia, which I really hope to do in January!

We moved on to Eagle’s Bay which has a viewing platform where you can apparently see sharks, dugongs, sting rays and lots of other wildlife. We did see a few things milling around, but with our lack of marine knowledge and binoculars, we were all completely convinced it was different things! Definitely worth dropping to see the lovely views and whatever there is in the water. It was here that we met some women who had toured almost the whole of Australia and they assured us that the West Coast had the most beautiful beaches of Australia and that Penguin Island (just South of Perth) was their favourite place in the country! Seems like Perth’s a pretty good choice then!

Next came Shell Beach, which is just astonishing and beautiful and vast and everything that you want to see in Australia. A huge great big expanse of bright white beach made up of only one type of shell (hence it’s natural heritage status – that’s pretty unusual)! The shells are mostly whole too, which is another reason why it is so unique and striking! It really was beautiful and we spent quite a while just soaking it, and the sunshine up. It’s another of those deceptive places where it’s harder than you think to go for a swim – we walked out for about 10 minutes before deciding just to lie down and have a cooling bath. We set off, aiming to reach Geraldton in the day, but between lunching and beaching and messing around we only got as far as South Coronation Beach before the sun set so we pulled in at a sign that promised camping and we were not at all let down. For $15 a night, any number of people could set up in one of the camping spots (compared to roughly $5-10 per person everywhere else) in a beautiful little beachside spot surrounded by big green hills and apparent nothingness. The caretaker here was a bit of a legend! He lives in semi-retirement onsite with his campervan, generator, super-tan and longboard apparently spending his days cleaning, gardening and trekking off to excellent longboarding spots. South Coronation Beach apparently hosts one of the best longboarding competitions in the world. It looks like it’s in May, but I can’t find any info about it on the web…

Wednesday: After failing on South Coro’s waves, which were perfect (as usual) for windsurfing we drove down to a beach North of Geraldton which was clearly pretty good, but unfortunately for us was very windy and choppy on this day. At least all of us had a go and spent a good bit of time in the surf, even if we weren’t exactly surfing and the currents were a bit scary at times. It was nice to finally see a surf spot which wasn’t just reef! We also chilled out on the dunes here enjoying the sunshine and the sea generally (a bit of a recurring theme on this trip!) and ate lunch at a lovely café in Geraldton. It’s actually a really nice place and people don’t give it enough credit for it being friendly, pretty, reasonably cheap and having nice beaches – I reckon a week or weekend in Geraldton would be pretty well spent! We started to drive back South now and stopped in Leeman, just after dark. The camp site owners were lovely people, but there wasn’t really much to see here, although we were tempted by a very expensive sky dive over the beach…

Thursday: Although we were heading straight for Lancelin, we took one quick ‘photo stop’ when we saw some lovely dunes. We accidentally found the incredible Wedge Island Community and spent quite a while walking awestruck through the seemingly deserted shacks (bear in mind that at this point we had no idea where we were!) and onto the most incredible beach I have ever seen in real  life. It was so perfectly turquoise water and golden sand that we all felt the need to run and jump and swim without a second thought that we now had to walk back to the car dripping wet along roads which now seemed to have a few more people on them, and I should also warn you are rather slippy, even if you’re dry! It was such an accidental, spontaneous and beautiful moment and you can just imagine why people decided to build homes here, it is also an interesting reminder or Australia’s history and it would be a real shame if it were lost. I think everyone should go there and then do all they can to make sure it is allowed to survive.

Wedge Island gets you high!

When we reached Lancelin we chose to surf rather than sandboard (as planned) because it was cheaper and apparently sandboarding’s not that much fun and it just hurts (I still want to try it though)! As this was our last night we decided to go out and stay up past 11.30; road trips, we discovered have a curious habit of aligning your sleep pattern with the normal world rather than the student one and this can be quite terrifying! We had spectacular pizzas, which may have just been so heavenly because they weren’t pasta,  and then headed to the Endeavour pub which was friendly and had dogs and pool tables to play with, plus its very own betting corner (this can also be found in the Ocean Beach Hotel in Cottesloe, which makes a lot of sense given Australian’s love of sport and the abundance of money around)

Thursday: We got up early, even by roadtrip standards, which was quite incredible seen as after the pub we’d decided to finish off all our goon (no point taking it home!). Early enough to see the sunrise seen as we’d had such bad luck seeing it set. We intended to surf before heading back to Perth, but the waves were tiny, so we got some coffee and reached Perth before 9am! This early return was a pretty good idea as we had to drop off everyone’s stuff at their houses, drink copious amounts of caffeine at each house, split up the spare food, clean all the dishes and camping gear and then hoover the car and use a very confusing car wash. We dropped it off with plenty of time to spare and you could easily cut it a bit finer, but we knew we’d have to spend a while filling out forms about our little accident (this includes a fun little diagram which I managed to draw back to front!) It was actually quite hard to say goodbye to everyone, although you’re still all at uni together, it’s not the same as spending 24/7 together in a compact space. It definitely created a stronger group and meant you felt more like real friends than just people who happened to be on exchange together.

Friday: We actually all met up again to swap all of our pictures so that we didn’t all have to rely on Facebook. It was nice to have a sit-down meal together in a house and to talk about and laugh over all the pictures before we had to get back into the uni way of life! We also used it as a chance to show each other pictures of our families, friends and exes, which was fun even if it showed we were getting a little homesick! I was clearly feeling this more than anyone as I showed off my typical ‘I Miss Scotland’ video selection of Caledonia performed by Celtic Thunder, the Irn Bru ‘If’ advert and videos of me Highland Dancing at Stirling Castle – obviously everyone enjoyed this just as much as I did!