| Home |
or
Read about our cycling trip around Australia in our book - "Ants, Dust & Flies in my Coffee..."
Or
Triking Alaska's
Dalton Highway
Our Latest Book in
E-Book Format
Size - 27Mgb
(requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
March 2020
07 March 2020
Where have the last two weeks or so gone? Settled in at Ducketts Mill Wines and Denmark Farmhouse Cheese we have been enjoying the few hours work each day and then looking around the area and generally doing what we do. Laurie and Annette are fabulous, but very, very busy people and so along with Ollie their full time man about things tick along, and we do our bit to lower the to-do list as much as we can.
Ducketts Mill Winery and Denmark Farmhouse Cheese from the air.
We have also been joined onsite by Phil and Von DiMasi, one half of the founders, and previous owners of Ventura Homes. They have sold their business and are now embarking on a new life after business, and this place has been a great start for them. Most days end with the four of us sitting in our chairs overlooking the vines as the sun goes down while polishing off a bottle of Ducketts Mill Red, born of those exact vines.
Ducketts Mill Winery and Denmark Farmhouse Cheese, and some of the surrounds.
Not many photo's of late other than with the drone because the camera had to be sent to Perth to have a little over use problem fixed, and so with it due back early next week, more shots and more vlogs will no doubt be taken on it's eagerly awaited return.
In the meantime we have been looking around the Denmark area, eyeballing some properties that we have been interested in on the Internet, checking out the shops and of course the real estate windows. Is this where we will eventually drop the anchor? We have no idea.
Some of our handiwork, the recently trimmed hedge and clean blinds along the very pleasant verandah.
We have also removed the netting shown in the photos above and have also been picking grapes over three days for processing before the machine came in, and finished the job in no time. What was good was the fact that we got to ride on the top of the machine and watch it pick grapes at a far better rate than we could ever hope to achieve.
Yesterday Phil, Von, Joanne and I were spoilt by Annette with a cheese platter and some wine, which we started grazing on around 3pm while sitting on the porch talking with Annette, and then when she went home for a well earned rest, we moved up to the porch of their AirBnB near where we are parked up to watch the sunset and to finish yet more wine. What a tough day!
Such a seriously yummy platter of the local fare that we thoroughly enjoyed.
16 March 2020
Time sure has flown since we updated this blog and it's speed has been helped by the delightful time we have been having. But, in order to prepare for another trip, we had to leave, but not before a last chance of getting some shots of the beautiful area scenes along Scotsdale Road.
Coming around the bend I came on this scene, and almost left rubber on the road stopping.
A small window of light and beautiful Karri Tree's caught my eye for this shot.
Morning light illuminates the beautiful Scotsdale Road trees.
Scotsdale Road leads you through some beautiful scenery, best seen in the early morning, or late afternoon.
So after the wrench of leaving Denmark we put some distance under the wheels, eventually stopping overnight at Jayes Bridge, a beautiful spot on the river and one where we have camped before, and just in time to launch the drone and to grab a pano of a storm passing behind us.
The storm passing made for quite a magnificent sight from 400'.
With the world in the grip of the corona virus, and worse, stupidity, we spent the next day stopping along the way at almost every town's supermarket to try and get some food supplies in readiness for our upcoming trip, and a little in reserve for when we get back, and it took shopping in Boyup Brook, Harvey, Waroona and even Pinjarra to get some basic supplies. The only good thing was that fuel was down to $1.199 in Waroona (with the 4 c discount).
So with all of that travel and madness, we decided to stop at the free camp in Pinjarra and to head on the sort distance to Kim and Carolyn's tomorrow. With the upcoming adventure out into the desert we have some things such as getting the ute serviced and organising storage for our 5th wheeler to do, as well as some research and contacting the Shires and places along our proposed route, so it will be a busy time before we head off next week. Where are we going? Well, you will just have to wait and see :-)
24 March 2020
Time has slipped away since our last entry on here, and the world has changed considerably, and not for the better. Anyway, rather than focusing on the negatives of food and toilet roll hoarding...
We have spent some time at Kim and Carolyn's getting ready for what was supposed to be a long and pleasurable bucket list trip into the desert, but with the world in the grip of an adjustment courtesy of a certain medical condition, we had to change to Plan B, also a bucket list item.
So after having the ute serviced, moving our gear into the campertrailer again and then putting the 5er into storage, we have hit the road with Kim and Carolyn and met up in Coolgardie with Kim's sister Dawn and husband Neville after a two day trip to get there. After meeting up we made our way North to Credo Station, somewhere we have been wanting to get to for almost 8 years!
Leaving the bitumen behind we followed the dirt road North, passing through some very pleasant bush until we got to the Rowles Lagoon, a large lake in the middle of nowhere, covered in a pinkish coloured weed and hundreds of black swans out in the middle. We enjoyed lunch while the hoards of flies tried to join in and then made our way the 6 km's back to the main road and onto Credo Homestead where we met Marty the caretaker.
So having had a chat with Marty, paid our fees and a cursory look through the visitors centre we made our way over to the campground and eventually selected a spot each not far from the toilets, and the hot water donkey showers, which we enjoyed later in the day.
With no campfire to ward off the very hungry mozzies, we resorted to sitting and then eating inside the fly wire enclosure under the awning, some spray and some strategically placed mozzie coils to try and avoid being a mobile blood bank to the little black raiders.
ur track can be found here.
25 March 2020
After a pleasant, and very quiet night we left camp and headed off into the bush to explore Credo. Following the guide sheets provided and the GPS we spent around 6 hours exploring, four wheel driving on the tracks, which after the rain has come through resemble creek beds more than tracks.
With a recent fire through the area part of the journey meant we had to stop and clear the track of fallen tree's, and at other times we just used or made tracks around them.
The tracks took us to a number of dam's on the property, Emu Rock, a large area of granite and then back to a previous dam where there is an old abandoned grader sitting there rusting away.
We drove up onto the rock for a better view, to fly the drone, and to get some phone signal.
Emu Rock Dam From above.
A little closer to the dam, and a better view of the burnt out countryside from a recent fire.
Eventually finding our way back to camp we then spent the rest of the day relaxing before leaving the next morning.
Our track can be found here.
26 March 2020
With the Corona Virus taking hold of more and more of life and more and more restrictions coming into play Dawn and Neville had to head home to ensure they could get back before various Shires and Authorities closed roads and areas, so that left Kim, Carolyn, Joanne and I to figure out what part of our trip we could salvage before we too had to head back.
We stopped for a look at a few things along the way and eventually arrived at Lake Ballard, a huge salt lake not far out of Menzies. This stop was in our original plan and so we settled into a camp (along with another million flies) and waited for the right time to get some photography done.
Sunset Pano of the island and one of the Gormley Statues.
Island Woman
Lake Ballard Man
Lake Ballard Stars. Not the best astro, but...
Drone shot of the photo shoot
Drone shot of Lake Woman. You can see by the footprints how many people go out to the first statue, and how boggy the lake is.
Lake Ballard Sunrise.
Our track can be found here.
27 March 2020
Well the news is not good, and that means we have to head back to civilisation and lock down. So after a stop in Menzies we found our way down the very quiet highway to Kalgoorlie where we picked up a small amount of supplies and continued on, eventually stopping at Boondi Dam.
Having camped at Boondi Dam before we found the campsite empty and so had the pick of sites to set up on, eventually settling for a spot next to the dam. Large clouds came over and of course we got a sprinkle of rain and the potential for more. Other campers came in and set up and we had six of us in overnight.
Sunset, and just before the shower of rain.
Our track can be found here.
28 March 2020
As we were all heading back to Kim and Carolyn's we opted for an extra couple of nights out to allow them time to get home, clean their rig and settle back in before we arrived, and so Joanne and I drove back through Bruce Rock. We had lunch in the shade of a large tree and viewed the remains of the supermarket which had recently burnt down because of an arsonist. Then it was onto Kwollyn and another nice, million fly campsite.
Our track can be found here.
29 March 2020
Expecting to be out another night we had planned on a camp at Beverley's RV camp, but on arrival found it closed, as was the local caravan park. Thanks to the virus and the gradual lock down, caravan parks and now even RV stops and rest areas have been closed in some area's. So with that option out of the equation we made an earlier arrival at Kim and Carolyn's than expected.
Washing the camper trailer down to get sthat red dirt off the outside and then putting it in the backyard was the first priority and then it was then time to go and get our 5th wheeler out of it's storage location and to bring it back to put it in kim and Carolyn's driveway while we go into semi lock down.
30 March 2020
Clean up and fix a few things was the order of the day today, as was transfer various bits back into the 5er from the campertrailer ready to give it a clean inside and then close it up until our next opportunity to use it.
31 March 2020
A day to keep sorting things out, catch up on this web page, process some photos and start putting the Lake BAllard vlog together ready to post to our youtube channel, and of course it is the end of yet another month.
Mark Twain once said "...years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do that by the things you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - and so we will.
|©Andrew & Joanne Hooker | Default Screen Size 1024x768||Last Updated |