Category: Fat bike

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Day 132: 9 October – Brilliant Busselton by bike

Author: Mr A

Location: Busselton

Distance cycled: 30 km

We took the Zone to see the doctor this morning, The Caravan Doctor, that’s right. Somewhere down the Gibb River Road our suspension had taken a hammering and some little plastic stoppers had been damaged. Or was it the weight of the hefty wine cellar, packed in anticipation of a vitculatural desert, that gave the suspension too much to cope with?  The lovely people at Zone had sent some new ones down to this caravan repairer in Busselton. We rolled in at 8.45am, they immediately went to work, and we were away by 9.30am. How about that for service? 

So back we went to the caravan park and set up again, not exactly arduous, plug in a few pipes and leads and we’re done. Our trusty two wheeled steeds were readied for exploration and off we set. We headed along a cycle way that followed the coast, ogling some amazing houses on the way, and all the native flowers that had been planted beside it. It truly was one of the best cycle paths we have ever seen. Beautifully tended flower beds alongside us, views of pristine white beaches, oh…and flat…Mrs A is doing well but still on the mend. 


The path eventually led us into this new marina development at Port Geographe, just stunning, the houses, the landscaping, the canals, its one of the most spectacular estates I’ve seen in Australia. 


We forced ourselves to turn round and cycle back into Busselton and explore in the other direction along the coast. It was just the same, beautiful beaches framed by wild flowers flowing alongside this cycleway. We wanted to just go on and on…but the afternoon was drawing on so we headed back into town, stomachs grumbling. 


A shingle backed lizard we spotted along the way – very well disguised in the pea gravel and sand:


Busselton, you really are something special. The wealth of this council must be enormous to invest in the infrascture of the town as they have. And its all so terribly tasteful, darling. 

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Day 125: 1 October – A two BBQ day is a good day

Author: Mr A

Distance cycled (by Mr A only!): 22 km

Distance walked: 4km

I snuck out early for a quick ride in the woods. It’s a magnificent morning, and I forgot my camera, so use your imagination. The trail undulates through the tall stands of jarrah and marri trees, the sun is piercing through the canopy and sending shafts of light down onto the  trail. No one else is around – you can only hear the sounds of the birds and in the distance the river washing over the rocks. I decide I better head back to check if Mrs A is awake and ready for me to charge up the Weber.


I take the view that a cooking a BBQ breakfast of eggs, sausage, mushrooms, beans and toast, washed down with two pots of tea, is the best road I can help Mrs A get back to full strength. I cant cook much but I can do a mean brekky. Tassie comes out to observe proceedings. It’s what we always used to dream about when we were on the first part of the trip without her. Just chilling out with her enjoying the sun outside the caravan. 


I got up to get something from the Zone and immediately my chair was commandeered by the small furry one. Hadn’t got the heart to shift her, so decided it was time for another ride. This time I did take the camera….



It’s such a beautiful trail I could keep going and going…but worry about Mrs A, so head back and find she is ready for a walk. Yippee! First milestone to recovery. Off we potter into the woods. It was wonderful to see her up and around again, snapping away at the birds and smiling through the effort of getting enough air down her swollen throat. We saw a few birds which only live in this part of Australia, like this red capped parrot:

And this Scarlet Robin:



Back at the Zone I decided I would try my hand at dinner, after being swept along on the wave of success of brekky. My limited imagination and culinary repotoire meant the BBQ was fired up again, some veg were roasted and some pre-cooked salmon taken out of the fridge…I know….but Mrs A was happy to not have to cook all day for a change. 

 Another good day on the road to recovery…

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Days 107-113: 13-19 September (Australia) – One small cat arrived; one only slightly larger still away

Author: Mr A

Location: Mandurah, 70kms south of Perth

If you are not one for cute cat photos, then I suggest you move to the last paragraph of this post rather quickly.

Last week our beloved Burmese cat, Tassie (or Miss T to her friends) was packed off by her loving step-parents Rosemary and Richard, for her flight from Sydney to Perth, a not incesequential flight time of 5 hours. A number of other anxious fur parents were waiting for those crates containing our loved ones to be unloaded and distributed amongst us. It was the 13th – I am superstitious. 

After what seemed an age she was delivered in her little yellow crate (sorry no pictures was so stressed I forgot!) and had arrived safe, in need of a brush and a cuddle, but otherwise in good spirits. Once I had her installed in the Zone, her tail was up, water was drunk, food was consumed at a rate of knots, and the brand new litter tray christened. All the boxes ticked. 

She has been away in the caravan with us a few times before, so familiar smells put her at ease, and she was soon resting up. She does a lot of that, around 23 hrs a day by my estimate. Well she’s no kitten any more, ageing gracefully at 13. We left the Discovery Parks site by the airport, which was pretty good actually, and headed south to Mandurah, Perth’s second largest city and growing fast. We rocked up at Mandurah Caravan Tourist Park, and were guided into our tight spot (site 13….) where we stayed for 6 nights. 

The days have flown past, with plenty for me to do, mostly cleaning and maintenance on the car, caravan and bikes. Miss T has adjusted pretty well, enjoying the ever changing view from the Zone’s big windows.  Birds, dogs, ducks and a miniature horse (yes you read that right), all have occupied her from the viewing platform of the queen bed. Occasionally she even ventures to the door to keep an eye on things and make sure all is in order. 


We have discussed sharing the housekeeping load, but bed making was frankly dismissed with a haughty shrug.


To be honest, life with a cat in a caravan is pretty good. No heating up a hot water bottle, no need for comedy programmes as she attempts various improbable manoeuvres to find the sunniest spot in the Zone.  Mind you, I have been relegated to Chief Brusher,  Tempting Treats Chef, and the queen bed doesn’t seem quite as roomy now. Yes that’s me buried at the back, one hint of a photographic opportunity and I’m toast. 

Now you may think that’s a grumpy look…and well…it often is. For instance if the temperature falls below 28.5 degrees (yes centigrade)  in the Zone (thank goodness for the insulation), approporiately chilled freshwater has not been added to her bowl in the last 15 minutes, the Coles roast chicken isn’t basted quite to her liking, or heaven forbid the mayo forgotten. The latter requiring at least 7 minutes brushing to restore the honour of her deigning to sit on my lap. 

Just one more photo then I promise I will stop. I came home from shopping today and couldn’t find her. Searched everywhere and anxiously ran through my locking up process – did she escape somehow? All the windows have strong fly nets, no escaping there. Now in an 18 foot 6 caravan you’d think there was only so many places a cat can make you work to find them. But really, she had me going. Finally, I saw my thick goosedown, winter sleeping bag by my bed, having omitted to pack it away after sorting out yesterday. I went to lift it up, and it felt unusually heavy. She had climbed right inside. 


Now, I admit the sun isn’t shining today, but its 23 degrees for goodness sake. 

So now let’s turn to Mandurah, and some impressions of this place I’d frankly never heard of. Well its not a wine region. I’ve done some cycling around, and super impressed with the dedicated infrasctucture for riders. Paths are everywhere, along beautiful foreshore, canals and lakes, which Mandurah is graced with in abundance. 


The marina area is very swish, restaurants line the waters edge, boutique shops are open for business, it was really buzzing, even on a Monday. 


The canal side housing looks tempting, and a friend assured me that with the highest mortgage default rate in the country, bargains can be had! 


However, you move away from this area and it soon looks pretty shabby. I was warned to keep alert, I checked the crime stats,  Mandurah has the highest number of robbery reports recorded in the greater Perth area. I’ve certainly locked everything up tight at night. 

One of the great things about the caravan we like over our camper trailer is that security of being able to lock all the external hatches and the door. Mind you I do have that fearsome looking Burmese on guard. Imagine coming face to face with that look on a dark night. If they can wake her….

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Day 103 & 104: 9 & 10 September – Bikepacking on the Munda Biddi trail

Author: Mr A

9 and 10 September 

From: Dwellingup

To: Pinjarra Hut, Lane Poole Reserve

Distance: Ridden – 68km

I packed up a very soggy tent, the mist thick in the valley, and headed beck in the car to the little village of Dwellingup. I love this place, its a bustle of activity with an adventure race on, people in hiking boots stomping around, motorcyclists at the pub reliving the twists and turns of the roads around the area. 

It was my birthday, and the treat I’d planned was to do an overnight ride on a small section of the worlds longest off-road bike trail – the Munda Biddi. The trail stretches from the hills just east of Perth all the way down to Albany on Australia’s far south coast, a cool 1100km of marked trail.

Touring on the dirt, carrying all your camping gear, preferably avoiding bulky panniers to better enjoy the riding, that’s we call bikepacking. Backpacking with a bike. And I love it – especially solo – I can ride at my pace (not fast!), stop and make a brew when I fancy (which is quite a lot).  It’s certainly easier carrying gear on a bike than on your back, well until the trail gets steep….You can also cover more distance than on foot and explore further, without mixing it with cars that much. 

So the first task was to load the bike, no mean feat as you can see from this photo. Can you spot the item that didn’t make it in? 


The bottle of Jack? Well done…it was my birthday after all. No harm trying. 

So everything is finally loaded and its already early afternoon. The bike is looking her impressively, dark, looming self, and I’m ready for the off. 

Now my training preparation for these rides is called the “muscle memory method” Let me hereby declare at 61 years of age, that no longer works! On the first steep hill I find myself “hiking the bike”, pushing 35kg of dead weight up slippery pea gravel. 

The pain was soon forgotten though when I warmed up and hit some gentler track. The jarrah forest is really spectacular and after a long break from the woods through the arid north of WA, the scenery was touching something primeval in the lizard part of my brain. Which, as some of you know, mostly gets activated after a few too many. 

The trail took me back along the river that I had been paddling, and then further deep into the upper reaches of this reserve. Really wonderful trails that just wandered along through the magifncent strands of giant jarrah.


 I only saw one other group of riders on the track the whole afternoon. Alone with my thoughts I pondered why it is WA invests in a trail like this, and NSW with similar country down the Great Divide does not. Our state can barely get their act together to join up the few off road cycle paths we do have. 

It was late afternoon and it was already starting to get chilly when I arrived at the “hut” that was to be home for the night.


Now I had brought my tent as apparently it was a “busy weekend” and yet not a soul was there. No doors and ends to the building either. The temerpature was dropping to single figures at night so I shivered with anticipation, and not in a good way. I soon had a brew going and my “one pot dinner” bubbling. The latter was a disaster. If you ever see “Sharwood’s Indian Side Dishes”, put it down and move away from that aisle. Oh yuk…Having planned for my culinary poor judgement out came the wraps, Vegemite and cheese. Much better. Then it struck me, here I am on my birthday, choosing to be own my own in the cold, dark, damp woods with not even a tot of bourbon to keen me company? What was I thinking? Well, what I was thinking was “Carpus Diem” (seize the day). I had the privilege  to watch a great leader marshall a group of us sometimes riders around this philosophy and inspired us to do just that. Dave Curran, now CIO at Westpac, got us out there pushing ourselves, both on and off the bikes. I want to take advantage of every chance while I have my legs and lungs to get out there. Even if it happens to be my birthday and I “should” be “celebrating”. This was my celebration of being 61. 

The morning dawned not early enough for me, after my air bed decided to have an “unplanned flattening” in the early hours. That was a low point, literally!

I was packed and off into the mist at sparrow’s. 


Retracing my steps back to Dwellingup, I made it to the pub for a some much needed calorie replacement. A great couple of days. A micro adventure  – turning dreams into memories – I won’t forget my 61st birthday. 

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Day 101 & 102: 7-8 September – The solo micro adventures of Mr A – packrafting and bikepacking galore!

Author: Mr A

Sept 7th

From: Perth

To: Lane Poole Reserve

Distance: Driven – 120km  Riden 15km

When the cat’s away…Mr A gets to play with his toys…on this occasion his packraft and fat bike. Mrs A is in the US and Miss Tassie (our Burmese cat) doesn’t fly until next Wednesday. I had a few days to go off exploring. I had read about an area a 90 minute drive south-east of Perth that had some white water paddling and also great off road biking tracks.

I headed off in the car with camping gear as the Zone is getting some repairs done in Perth. The landscape changed dramatically, forested hills and lush valleys. I’d booked a camp site in the Lane Poole Reserve, 50,000 hectares of outdoor playground with a river winding through jarrah trees and miles of walking and biking trails.

Up went the “Norman No Mates” little hike tent. and I jumped on the bike to scope out what the paddling would be like. Wow…some stretches of flat water interspersed with rapids of varying sizes. This looked interesting! I’d not taken the packraft out on anything like this before.

Sept 8th

From: Charlie’s Flat, Lane Poole Reseve

To: Yarragil, Murray River

Distance: Driven 8km. Paddled 12km. Cycled 20km

It was time to test my metal in some white water. I drove upstream and parked the car, the plan being to paddle down to my camp, jump on the bike and ride back to collect it. I was soon in the water and heading downstream at a fair rate of knots in the strong current. My first little rapid and all was good. I had decided to leave the spray skirt off, trading ease of egress should I be tipped, with the downside of getting some water in the boat. Following the paddling map I soon heard the roar of the “only for the experienced white water canoeist” rapid, and decided as I was on my own, with no helmet, I better portage this one. With a 3.5 kg boat that’s easy. The next rapid was pretty bouncy, but the little boat just bounced over the white water like a wild thing…great fun…some adrenaline released!


I only saw a couple of other boats on the water, and watched a family coming down the rapid behind me…no one looked in control and sure enough dad and his son tipped in. I rushed over as I hadn’t seen the son come up, he was trapped under the boat briefly and then popped out not a happy little chappy. I helped get him out of the water and calmed him down. He probably won’t take a deep bath for a while. And so that’s how people drown, no skills, no risk assessment, just jumped in and went down with no clue how to keep the boat going the right direction.

I was at camp by lunch so drove down steam and left the bike and then paddled down, deflated the raft and strapped it on the rack and cycled back. These boats are so flexible, people just don’t know about them.

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Day 99: 5 September – Exploring Perth on two wheels

Author: Mrs A

Location: Perth

Distance cycled: 28km

Spring truly sprung in Perth this morning and we were back in the shorts and t-shirts again as we jumped on our bicycles to head into the city. Our first stop was to a chemist so I could pick up some drugs to try and keep me breathing over the next three weeks, and we had lunch in a lovely cafe next door.

Onwards then towards the city following 14km of off road cycleways and towards the botanical gardens. Perth is pretty hilly, something we particularly realised today with some steep climbs to reach the gardens.  But we made it up, me wheezing quite heavily with my compromised airway, but proud to have made it


The gardens are beautiful, native plantings representing different areas of Western Australia’s wild flora. Most of the pathways were not meant for bikes so we missed out on a wonderful looking treetop boardwalk winding through the gums, but sneaked through to some of the lookouts over the intersection of the Canning and Swan Rivers.


We finally got to see Western Australia’s famous everlasting flowers, stunning carpets of pink and yellow we had hoped to glimpse on our journey south. They are worth the hype!

We finished our ride back at the Toyota garage, where we handed over a swift $800 (gulp) for all the electrical repairs and parts we needed fitting, and loaded the bikes on the back of the Landcruiser. We returned to camp via the Perth Sailing Club for some sunset photos (sorry Eveliene, didn’t make it to the Blue Boat House – we drove past and it looked busy!).


A chilled out evening ahead, and hopefully an early night – I didn’t sleep well last night with all my medical relevations swimming through my head.

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Day 95: 1 September – First day of spring…

Author: Mrs A

Location: Cervantes

Distance cycled: 12km

A blustery, showery day met us as we awoke this morning, making it very hard to muster the energy to get out of bed and greet the world. But we did, jumped on our bikes and explored Cervantes, heading first to Lake Thetis home to more ancient stromatolites. 


A 3,500 year old stomatolite in the rain:


From there we cycled back to the coast to the Lobster Shack. This is home to a multi million dollar business, fishing for and processing Western Rock Lobster (known locally as ‘crayfish’) – most of which are exported live overseas. They also have a very basic restaurant where their chefs cook up the locally caught lobsters for visitors. We had to try it out.


Verdict: delicious! I’m looking forward to cooking the one in our freezer soon…

The sunshine disappeared after lunch, replaced by ever strengthening wind and increasing showers. We decided to give up our cycle exploration and retired to the mobile apartment for an afternoon holed up with chocolate and binge watching some of the Netflix we downloaded in Geraldton! 

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Day 89: 26 August – Beautiful Kalbarri

Author: Mrs A

Location: Kalbarri

Distance cycled: 17 km

Mr A woke up early and full of beans so set about cleaning the van, car and mountain bikes all before 7am! Of course I couldn’t really just stay in bed, so before long all the washing was on also, and Mr A heading off to the nearest bakery in town for freshly baked bread.

So by 9am, we were breakfasted and all tasks done, so we leaped on the bikes for an explore. First impressions are impressive. Kalbarri is a very small sleepy village, with about 6 places to eat out, either small cafes or pubs other than one, a single souvenir shop, two tiny privately owned local supermarkets (extremely expensive of course), and little else. There is a fishing fleet at the marina, and a fabulous coastal cycleway all along a stunning coastline. Kalbarri is where the Murchison River meets the ocean – the very same river we camped and hiked beside in Wooleen Station winds its merry way down to here. Hard to imagine!


The town reminds us of a smaller and quieter version of Coffs Harbour in NSW, probably as it would have been about 20 years ago. It sits in the midst of a national park – with walks along the coast as well as along the Murchison River gorge. 

There is even an ice creamery here – Mr A was excited to try a couple of flavours (Nutella and caramel ice cream), but I am sorry to say their sorbet choice extended to a single orange variety which was extremely sickly and tasted like it had been in the display unit a few too many months. Straight to the bin.

We cycled along a lovely shared pathway which follows the coast to Red Bluff, where the stunning turquoise waters meet the iron filled rock of the cliffs.


We were recommended a new eatery to dine at, ‘Upstairs Restaurant’, which had only opened in early July. We checked it out for dinner tonight. The chef is Spanish, trained in a Michelin Star restaurant in France, and the owner a young Iranian lady who has moved up here from Perth. She has brought a lot of class, with tablecloths (I know! in WA!), an excellent menu and wine list, and incredibly cooked food. Having skipped lunch, we were hungry and booked an early meal to watch the sunset over the sea. The owner had some time to chat about the challenges of starting a new business in a small town. Apparently she was told ‘It’s all too much for Kalbarri‘ – but being booked out for weeks on end and getting rave reviews on TripAdvisor suggests otherwise. We told her to stick with it.

The food was brilliant, and the Clare Valley Shiraz-Tempernillo blend we had with it was ideal. We shared some tapas for entree (hummus, baba ganoush, olives, olive oil and balsamic served with delicious bread from a Perth bakery plus fresh local king prawn skewers) and had separate mains (a half rack of glazed pork ribs with salad and crispy potatoes for me, and a whole crayfish tail for Mr A with salad) – exquisitely cooked.


A lovely night and back in the mobile apartment before 8.30pm! 

Need to burn all this food and drink off tomorrow – we are planning to head into the National Park for some hopefully tough hiking!

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Day 79: 16 August – Biking, bubbles and campfires

Author: Mrs A

Distance driven: 452 km

Distance cycled: 14.5 km

We awoke to a perfect blue sky morning and were packed up, hitched up and on the road by 8am. We had a lot of driving ahead of us and we wanted to ensure we made the most of our destination in the afternoon.

Several podcasts kept us company along the way, and by 2.30pm we had arrived. Today we are staying at Hamelin Station on the southernmost tip of Shark Bay.


Hamelin Station Reserve is a 202,000 hectare property, situated on 32 kilometres of coast line and bordering the Shark Bay World Heritage area.  The former sheep station is now owned by Bush Heritage Australia.  The reserve helps to protect Hamelin Pool, one of the only two places in the world where living marine stromatolites are known to occur.

Now, we had no idea what stromatolites were, so on spotting a sign directing us to see them, we jumped on our bikes and headed up to Hamelin Pool. As we rode down onto the beach and boardwalk we spotted Nick and Laura, the couple from Manly/UK who we first met (and last saw) just north of Broome while hunting for dinosaur footprints! On finding they are camped just two spots away from us we made arrangements to catch up for drinks in the evening.


So, stromatolites. These black spongy things are stromatolites, basically towers of living micro organisms, the origins of life on earth. Pretty interesting. We passed several Japanese tourists taking selfies with the rock-like structures – I wondered whether they had any idea what the information boards said or why they were there. Even Mr A and I found them relatively heavy going!

The beach on which we were cycling was made entirely of miniature white shells, a particular type of cockle which grows prolifically in this area. In one area we passed through quarry from the 1800s, where the original settlers in this area had cut bricks from the compacted shells to build their homes.


We returned to Hamelin Station and explored the beautifully landscaped grounds and onsite lake, rich in birdlife.

Before long it was time to pop the cork on our prosecco and raise a toast. On this day 15 years ago Mark and I became Mr and Mrs Anderson, supported by many friends and family at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. Laura and Nick came over to join us, bringing some dips and biscuits, and we set about realising just how many people we know in common. Mr A and Laura in particular – Laura previously worked for SAS and Mr A worked closely with a number of her colleagues in his KPMG days.

We finished the evening under the shooting stars around the campfire with several good bottles of red. A fine end to an anniversary date!

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Day 75: 12 August – Market day in Carnarvon

Author: Mrs A

Location: Carnarvon

Distance cycled: 20 km

Saturday morning meant the long awaited market day had arrived. Carnarvon is the centre of the fruit and vegetable growing region, and today marked the final day in a week long celebration ‘Food week’. Just by chance we happened to be here – usually we arrive a week after these events, hearing tales of how good they were. So we jumped on our bikes and rode the 5km into town and the markets, with mediocre expectations. They were good! Not quite as good as the Forestville farmers markets we experience in Sydney, but also not as bad as the ‘markets’ in Derby with three market stalls, two of which were selling doilies…

Incredible varieties of home made jams and preserves (we bought a green mango chilli jam – yum!), plus well priced vegetables and fruits freshly picked.  There were some celebrity chefs cooking chicken, meatball and catfish dishes, all served up for free, and even the TV cameras there to interview blokes in jackets – presumably regional Western Australia celebrities.


We purchased as much as our fridge could cope with and jumped back on our bikes to continue exploring Carnarvon. We rode down to the water and across an old jetty, still sporting rail lines. This, we then learned, led to a 3km ride across salt marsh to one of Carnarvon’s tourist highlights, One-Mile-Jetty, where you can ride an old train out to sea, around a mile for $5. We gave that a miss and rode back to camp with our purchases.


With 20km under our belts we felt a little peckish and decided to try out some of the local seafood. We picked up some fish and chips, bringing them back to the mobile apartment to consume. By now the wind had picked up and we had heard rumours of bad weather approaching. We weather-proofed the caravan. The fish and chips were ok, but nothing to write home about. Very average.

The afternoon was spent competing tasks – washing bedding, washing the car, supermarket shopping. The wind got stronger and the blue sky disappeared.


A very chilled out evening eventuated as the wind dropped and the rain arrived. It is still warm, and the rain seems to be in showers only – just enough to ensure our sheets don’t dry!

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