A bumpy ride to Paradise.

Recently, Tom Zaunmayer, a journalist in the Pilbara, wrote a very  entertaining story of his bumpy four-wheel drive rides  to secluded, scenic beauty spots (Weekend West Australian), Feb. 9-10, 2019).

It reminded me of many  bumpy summer holiday trips to the shacks at Whitfords Beach in the late 1940s. Of course there were very few four-wheel drive vehicles around in those days. We ventured everywhere, intrepidly, in two-wheel drive vehicles.

My younger sisters and I would sit in the back of Dad’s bull nosed Morris utility. Leaving civilisation at Dog’s Swamp (no shops, no houses, no dogs, just swamp) we travelled along a narrow bitumen road that ran north through virgin bush to Yanchep.  About forty minutes later we would turn left at a crude, handwritten sign nailed to a banksia tree indicating, “Whitfords.”

Two-wheel drive cars and utes travelled along this very rough, bumpy, boggy track to reach the forty or so weatherboard shacks at Whitfords beach. The track, now the busy Whitfords Avenue, was littered with branches, hessian bags, corrugated iron and sheets of plasterboard that were used to get bogged vehicles free. On one occasion my Dad was forced to almost completely deflate the tyres in order to get us out of one very sandy bog. Luckily, we carried a large, hand operated pump to get us mobile again. It was a very bumpy ride. My main job in the back of the ute was to hold a sugar bag under the mouth of my red cloud kelpie dog, Prince. Prince was a magnificent dog, but the lumpy, bumpy ride into Whitfords caused him to get seasick.

Each August, from 1957 to 1961, I enjoyed similar rough rides to Kalbarri in my mate Tony Jones’ Volkswagen Beetle. It was a red dirt road from Northampton to Binnu, then a left turn along a rough, rocky, boggy and sometimes soggy route that would be flattered if you called it a track. I was overseas in the early sixties and did not return to Kalbarri until 1967. It was bitumen all the way and, as Tom Zaunmayer would have predicted, Kalbarri had quickly turned into a mini Mandurah.                 

By far the longest and bumpiest road trip I ever endured was a car trip across the Nullarbor that started on Boxing Day, 1961. I was driving  a most luxurious leather upholstered, Austin A 95 Westminster sedan. Even in 1961 it featured a radio control system for passengers in the rear. I bought in when I was teaching in Bunbury. The previous owner was the local bank manager, who had maintained the stylish vehicle in tip-top condition. I am sure he would have been mortified if he knew what rough treatment I was going to inflict on it travelling  across Australia on a dirt road which was euphemistically designated as The Eyre Highway.

I had not done a lot of research for the Nullarbor adventure. I knew the road was  not sealed and that I needed to take some spare parts and a canvas water bag. I proudly hung that water bag on the front bumper. It was sign to all other drivers that I was an adventurer. That I, too, had traversed the Eyre Highway, Australia’s longest and the worst highway anywhere.

I was travelling with my good friend, Murray Paddick, and another young fellow who, at the time, was a cameraman for the recently opened Channel 7 in Perth. I think his name was Steve. Anyhow, Steve boarded at my Aunty Millie’s house in North Perth. When he heard Murray and I were travelling across the Nullarbor to Sydney on Boxing Day, he asked to share the expenses and come along in order to visit his family in Sydney. Murray and Steve had about as much, or even less, knowledge than me of the rugged road we were about travel on.

On the first day we reached Norseman in late afternoon. After a counter meal at the Norseman Hotel, we set off again about 6-00pm. The idea was that we would drive into the gathering gloom until it became dark. Then we would pitch camp for the night. Camping would consist of parking the car on the side of the road, throwing a tarpaulin down and sleeping on it. We had sleeping bags if needed, but the weather was quite hot.

After we had travelled for about an hour out of Norseman, I turned on the headlights to help us find a reasonably safe spot to pull over. Suddenly the car stopped. The lights went out. This is not a good way to start a four-day journey across rugged country, I thought. We all jumped out of the car. On lifting the bonnet we discovered that the bumpy road had caused the battery to fall out of its mountings. It was hanging by one lead down the side of the engine. No power. No lights. No ignition. No go!

We quickly reconnected the battery. Having secured it in its housing, we decided that this was as good a spot as any to pitch camp. We threw the tarp down and went to sleep. Well, Murray and Steve may have gone to sleep but I spent an hour or two worrying about why I had ever decided to travel on this very long, very rough and very  bumpy road and whether my beautiful, luxuriously appointed car, would survive the journey. More to the point, would the three of us survive the journey?

I am glad to say that my car performed magnificently after that battery mishap. I travelled on happy in the knowledge that when we reached the South Australian border we would once more be on beautiful, black, flat bitumen.

The next afternoon we reached Eucla, an historic place where the international telegraph first came ashore. After 58 years my memory of Eucla is hazy. The main settlement was set some distance back from the coast, so, we drove to have a look at the original, and now unused, telegraph station, which I remember as being heavily invaded by sand drifts. It was right next to the ocean. We parked in the deserted car park. The three of us decided to freshen up with a swim in the Great Australian Bight. As there was nobody around, we decided there was no need to rummage through our luggage for our bathers. We just stripped of and ran into the water.

We ran and we ran and we ran . It was very shallow. We were fifty yards from the shore and we were only shin deep. And naked!  We ventured out over100 metres. The water was nearly waist deep. Deep enough for a plunge and  a refreshing swim. We were actually swimming naked in The Great Australian Bight! What adventurers we  were?

We quickly returned to the car and were quickly dried off   by the beating sun and fresh sea breeze. Just as we had dressed, a young English fellow pulled up and parked near us.

“Where are the changerooms?” he enquired.

“No changerooms, Mate. But don’t worry. There’s nobody for miles. Just jump in. That’s what we just did.”

Well, no doubt the young Englishman was also feeling in need of a swim after a day or so on a hot, dusty and very bumpy track. He stripped off and ploughed into the water. We told him he would need to go out a long way to get into the deeper water.Then we piled back into the car and headed off. Just as we left the parking area, a vehicle came over the hill, obviously heading for the beach at the telegraph station. The wagon had a red, dusty water bag on the front bumper. Fellow travellers!

In the car were mum, dad the driver, and their  three daughters. Ages ranging from about 10 to 17years. They would have arrived at the car park just as our young English friend reached the deep water. To this day I still wonder how long he had to remain modestly submerged, over 100 metres from shore while mum, dad and the three girls had a good look at the old historic telegraph station at Eucla. Maybe the family, or the girls at least, stripped off for a swim too. Surely, not! 

Eucla is right on the WA/SA border.When we eventually arrived in South Australian I was dumbfounded to discover that the road was just as rugged as it was in Western Australia. In fact it was worse.

Steve said that the South Australian government did not spend much money on the Eyre Highway, as it only led to Western Australia. Well, Hello! That explains why it took about seventy years after federation before there was a sealed road across our great nation. (In August,1964, Murray and I drove from Toronto to Vancouver on Canada's Highway 401. The 401 is a magnificent sealed two lane highway from coast to coast. In contrast, in 1964, the Eyre Highway across the Nullabor was still basically over 1000kms of dirt track. A national disgrace, really, but evidence of how unimportant Western Australia was in national thinking. So, what's new?)

On day three we woke at sun-up somewhere in South Australia and drove in to Penong. We arrived at about 7-00am and parked in front of the  general store, waiting for it to open so that we could buy some bread and milk. When it did open, I asked the lady serving us how far it was till the bitumen started.

“Not till Port Augusta,” she said as my jaw hit the ground.

Port Augusta! We had endured about 1600 kms of rough and dusty road from Norseman to Penong, the last 420 kms of it over lumpy South Australian roads Now, this lady was telling me that we had another 540 kms of rough South Australian limestone, holes and red dirt roads still to travel. Almost ten more hours of bumps and dust.

We arrived in Port August about  4-30 pm and I pulled into a very modern garage which had beautiful hot shower for weary travellers like us. Paradise!

Well, a lot more happened on that trip to Sydney and on the return journey, via Melboure five weeks later, but as we have now reached the blessed bitumen, I will move on. Smoothly, I hope.

One of the thousands of wreath Flowers near Pindar.

Last September, my wife, Lesley, and I travelled about 5000 kms in a two-wheel drive, 2 litre, Kia Cerato, from Ocean Reef to Point Samson and back. We explored Karijini National Park and parts of Millstream- Chichester National Park. It was a long, but very comfortable journey in our small sedan. I told friends who were interested, and even those who weren’t, that it was akin to flying across the Pacific Ocean in a Tiger Moth. Well, maybe not quite, but Lesley and I did have excited feelings about the adventures awaiting us as we set off in our small car in search of fabulous Western Australian wildflowers and wonderful scenery.

The main roads, apart from a stretch under repair at Bindoon, were very good. The dirt roads east of Pindar, near Mullewa, where the fabled Wreath Flowers grow, were smooth and comfortable. The dirt roads in Karijini were driveable. However, the same could not be said for those in the Millstream-Chichester National Park.

Lesley and the Cerato in the Pilbara,

I drove around Millstream in 2008 in a two-wheel drive Holden station wagon with no trouble at all. However, this year, when we reached Python Pool, we were warned by two four-wheel vehicle drivers from Karratha, that the roads further on to the Millstream Homestead and surrounding beauty spots were not suitable for two-wheel cars. They told us the roads were so corrugated that they were not even suitable for four-wheel drive vehicles that were towing caravans. Sadly, we returned to Karratha.

Tom Zaunmayer says that for four-wheel vehicle drivers “the rough and tumble journey is the destination.”  Well, good luck with that, Tom and I know how you feel. On the other hand, Millstream-Chichester National Park is one of Nature’s great destinations. After all, this is not the 1940s or 1950s. It is not even the 1960s. It is 2019, almost one fifth of the way into the Twenty First Century. All of our national parks should be sealed or at least very well graded on a regular basis.

  

It is a great shame that the roads in the Millstream-Chichester National Park  are not maintained well enough, or regularly enough, to enable two-wheel vehicle access for the great majority of Western Australian drivers.