At trip to Karijini National Park...

Oh dear, we really need to get used to the idea that this is not a country which can be easily traversed in three hours by road. And when people tell you something is 'just on your doorstep', what they actually mean is that you don't need to take a flight to get there.

Yesterday we decided to visit the famous Karijini National Park, which had been described by several people as - yep -- 'on our doorstep'.

It isn't.

Setting off with a picnic, five bickering children and half a tank of petrol, we figured we'd be at the park in an hour.

And yes, we did reach its outer edges in just over an hour, however we quickly discovered that the Visitor Centre was 55 kilometres away, and all the attractions were of similar distances and in various directions. And the road had given way to a red gravel track making for a bumpy and uncomfortable ride.

I had imagined visiting the park would be a bit like visiting The World Showcase in Disney World, where you can visit eleven countries in an hour, shuttling from fake Marrakesh to fake Oslo in a matter of minutes. Sadly nature isn't quite as accommodating as the Disney Corporation; it takes time, patience and a lot of petrol, and to see all that Karijini has to offer  -- the falls, the gorges, the pools, the fauna -- takes many hours or even days, and many people choose to camp there and make a holiday of it. How naive to think we could simply rock up, park the car, check out the nature and still be home in time for The Voice?

Instructing the children to please put away their Nintendos and look out the windows, we kept our eyes peeled for kangaroos, dingos or anything else of interest. 'Is that a lizard? Look, LOOK!' yelped DH enthusiastically at regular intervals. 'Nope, it's a strip of tyre....' 

We drove for what felt like an eternity through bush land and I wondered what secrets the surrounding mountains held, and what we might be missing. Karijini is truly a stunning place, but oh so vast!

More termite mounds...

Not knowing which sign to follow, we finally opted to follow one for Kalamina gorge, which lead us up a bumpy, winding road to a smallish gorge overlooking a rock pool below. It was beautiful to behold although sadly nature doesn't come with a safety rail, and the splendour was rather spoiled by the three youngest children who hold little or no regard for their personal safety.

It was clear that there would be no swimming in the rock pool below (how would we get to it without literally jumping from twenty feet above?) so we opted to simply sit on the flat, four billion year old rock and have a picnic, while trying to prevent the baby from hurling himself into the water below.

The visitor centre is miles from anywhere....

After a fretful lunch, we decided to continue on the road towards the Visitor Centre where I hoped to peruse a gift shop and look at nature on a flat screen TV. Tragically it was closed, and it had also started to rain.

The petrol tank was by now starting to look a little thirsty -- we had been driving around for almost three hours -- and the nearest petrol station was an hour and a half away.

It was time to retrace our steps and head back, so we reluctantly turned the car around to make the two hour drive home. All we had seen was a gorge too perilous to get close to, a closed Visitor centre and at one point I thought I may have seen a dead snake on the road. 

Next time we visit Karijini National Park we will leave the children behind and book into the Karijini Eco Retreat, which offers luxury camping accommodation -- or as they call it ecommodation --  allowing us to be at one with nature while lying on our bed, viewing it on the Samsung Tab 2. Less perilous and far less petrol.

'Glamping' in Karijini Eco Retreat...

Postcards from The Bush....

One thing I like about all the moving around we've been doing over the last few years, is how you can walk -- quite literally -- out of one world and into another (and as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared!) One day you're living in a house on the west coast of Ireland, surrounded by green fields and grazing cows, the next day 'home' is a 16th floor hotel room in hot and dusty downtown Abu Dhabi.

And where you once woke up to the sound of tractors chugging along the road and 'Morning Ireland' on the radio, you are now woken by beeping taxis and the international edition of CNN news on the TV. All that is required to implement this dramatic transformation is enough money to board a flight (or preferably an employer willing to relocate you) and the will to do it.

Just over a week ago we did it again, we left the Perth hills and tumbled -- head first -- from one world right into another.

The journey, which we planned to do in two days, ended up taking three (we stopped over in Kalbarri on the first night -- yay! fabulous! and Carnarvon on the second night -  boo! a tumble-weeded ghost town!).

It is hard to quite comprehend how enormous this country is, and I blush to think that in the past I've grumbled at the idea of driving from Galway to Dublin. Such a journey is but a mere trifle when compared with the drive from Perth to the Pilbara, which is just so arduously time-consuming that at times I contemplated simply turning back and taking a flight. And despite promising to share the driving with DH, I found that after approximately twenty three minutes behind the wheel, I would start nodding off so mind-boggling long was the road ahead.

You could be forgiven for thinking the scenery would be dull and unchanging, how interesting could it be?, but what was so surprising was how the landscape kept changing its mind; you could be driving through pale grassland for several kilometres, only for it to suddenly be replaced by red sand and rock; now red sand and blackened trees; and now we have dark and broody hills; and now  -- allakhazam! -- we're back to grasslands again! And there were mountains, and flat plains, and funny little rock formations at one point (which google tells me are termite mounds) -- which looked like miniature mud huts from a distance -- and which disappeared just as quickly as they appeared as we sped by.

My pictures turned out crap so I pinched this one!

What was also new to us, was the fact that there are NO shops along the route. As we pulled out of the car park of Bates Motel in Carnarvon (an homage to 1970s motel (very shabby) chic) on the last morning of our journey, DH asked me did I want to stop for coffee and snacks before we hit the open road. 'Nah,' I replied nonchalantly, 'we'll get something along the way'.

HA! BIG MISTAKE! Reader, if you are planning a long drive through outback Australia, take no chances and pack several picnics!!  After two hours I was fantasising about the Applegreen service station in Enfield, with it's cafe, Burger King, toilets, shop and play area  (you can even buy wine or a mug with your name on it if you fancy).

After four hours I was wondering which child we could do without...

Five hours after my oh so dismissive refusal of food and drink, we fell on a roadhouse and happily paid twenty dollars each for sausages and chips for the kids (no extra charge for the grey hairs in them either!) and twelve dollars for a very underwhelming cheese sandwich. The coffee, which was four dollars, turned out to be a mug, a water boiler, and an un-labelled jar of powdered coffee. We gave it a miss.

The coffee wasn't the only thing over-priced!

We arrive in Para-Para-Paraburdoo!

So here we are. First impressions? Basically I've moved to 1962 with wi fi capability. The town is small, safe (nobody locks their houses), everyone knows each other, and the children are now having the sort of childhood I had back before every stranger became a potential paedophile and every activity a potential death risk. They have free rein to wander where they want, can walk to school, walk to the shops or their friends houses. In short, it's heaven.

My main gripe with motherhood has always been the driving around and waiting bit. Over the years we've ditched dance classes and eschewed play dates because the waiting around to collect/drop off has always been just too much like hard work, not least because the rest of them have to come too. Here my participation is no longer required.

It gets better; on Friday night we put the 12-year-old in charge of the others, and DH and I took a leisurely stroll, hand in hand, through the green and across the road, to the local inn where we had dinner. I haven't known this kind of ease in years, and quite truthfully, I feel like I've been let off the hook from the demands of modern day living.

Our new home is a bit of a menagerie, with resident mice and termites, not to mention the frogs which playfully leap out of the toilet bowl at the most inopportune moments (I swear I've never moved so fast in my life), but this can be easily remedied by a visit from the local pest controller and the foresight to flush before and after you sit down!

The town is largely owned by Rio Tinto, whom are very much the main employer, owning most of the properties and subsidising local energy and amenities. They even have a community advisor who kindly talked me through any issues I might be having, when I accidentally bumped into her at the school.

This means there is a certain 'Big Brother' feel to the place at times, and I briefly felt a little like Jeanne Tripplehorn in the movie 'The Firm'. 

"I wonder if the house is bugged..." I pondered to DH, "Maybe we can never leave..."

 Of course such a small community has its drawbacks, and DH has warned me to be on my best behaviour, "You don't know who you're talking to" he warned forebodingly. He would say this of course, being from Innishbiggle, the original Valley of the Squinting Windows...

On the first day of school, chatting to the registrar about the long journey we'd just undertaken, and the rip-off road house, she interrupted me with "I'm surprised D didn't warn you about it!" 

-"How do you know I know D?" I shot back quickly, (D is a friend in Perth who used to live in Paraburdoo). 

-"Haha, everyone knows!" she chuckled, "we've all been looking out for you!"

On Wednesday's the Big Truck rolls into town bearing supplies for the supermarket. If you don't want to run out of milk or bread or anything else, it is wise to stock up before Saturday, as I learned three days in when we ran out of bread, and were forced to resort to an 80 kilometre drive to the neighbouring town of Tom Price (they didn't have bread either).

So, this is my first post from the bush, and I've still much to learn about the place. I'm going to start by concentrating on finding a decent radio station, since the only one I seem to land on here is a Christian one, and despite its promise to make sense of our modern age with a biblical slant, I'd much prefer my favourite ABC Classic FM thank you very much!

View from our front door...