Kalbarri, Coral Bay and Shark Bay

After farewelling the young man at Perth airport, the man and I picked up our portable accommodation for the next 14 days – a camper trailer. Although we were already equipped with our own small tent, we figured that this style of tent would be easier to assemble and pack up and would also give us more space to organise our belongings. We didn’t have a firm itinerary at this stage, our goal was to travel to Coral Bay (approximately 1100 kms north of Perth) stopping off in places for as long as we felt and being mindful of local weather forecasts due to the cyclone season.

In addition to hiring the camper trailer we also rented a portable fridge/freezer and had been under the impression that it could run off the camper trailer battery or our car battery while we were travelling. I had done a bit of homework and pencilled in many bush camps along the way which sounded like peaceful waterfront locations. After discovering that the fridge/freezer hadn’t been charged and the camper trailer battery would only last for one night without power some quick re-planning was in order.

We resigned to staying in caravan parks for this leg of our trip for the sole purpose of electricity. After a quick overnight stop in Jurien Bay we drove to the town of Kalbarri, right on the edge of Kalbarri National Park. I had previously written off Kalbarri as I didn’t think we would be able to camp here with Ollie but it turned out I was wrong. The small town is located just outside the boundaries of the National Park on the mouth of the Murchison River. Along the coast were several dog friendly beaches we were thankful for as the daytime temperatures were around 40C. We enjoyed several trips to the stunning Red Bluff beach (pictured below) and were usually the only people there.

The caravan park we stayed in was one of the nicest on our trip, our camp site had an outlook to the river and a swimming pool was nestled amongst the gum trees. As I didn’t take any food shots at Kalbarri, I’ve included a photo of this rather cute long nosed dragon who was peacefully enjoying basking in the hot sun.

During our stay at Kalbarri most of our fridge items became frozen and we were informed by the hire people that the configuration was 80% freezer, 20% fridge and not the other way around as we had initially thought. Thankfully we still had our esky/car fridge with us and were able to use that for cooling things without freezing them! On our drive up to Coral Bay we passed through the larger town of Carnarvon and I made use of the freezer by stocking it up with bags of mixed frozen vegetables as it was difficult to keep produce fresh in such hot temperatures for any length of time.

Coral Bay is a tiny tourist town situated on Ningaloo Reef, the largest fringing reef in Australia which is renowned for being a temporary home to the whale sharks during their annual feeding season. Snorkelling is accessible as little as 50 metres offshore which is ideal for beginners and youngsters. Unfortunately for us, an impending cyclone further north by the name of Rusty brought some gusty winds to Coral Bay which made the conditions for snorkelling rather challenging. Even though all of the area surrounding Coral Bay is a marine park there was still one beach where Ollie was allowed to run free and the man and I could alternate snorkelling attempts. We spotted lots of colourful fish of varying shapes and sizes as well as the occasional sting ray.

Every afternoon, there was a fish feeding session in the bay so I went along one day to check it out. A marine biologist spoke to the tourists standing around in knee deep water about the types of fish that usually visit during the feeding times as well as the other species which hide amongst the reefs. The hungry fish were extremely bold and not afraid to brush against your legs, some of the fish were rather large and a number of tourists were afraid of getting too close. Everyone was given a handful of food pellets to drop into the water slowly, if you dropped too many in at once the fish would fight over the food. Hand feeding was strictly prohibited as humans can pass on germs and the fish are likely to bite with their sharp teeth.

Even though the weather wasn't ideal, it was difficult to leave Coral Bay as we had travelled over 4000 kms from home and this was the turn around point of our journey. After starting to drive back towards Perth we made a detour at Shark Bay, a World Heritage Area. The region of Shark Bay is home to Monkey Mia, a popular tourist destination due to the daily feeding program of bottlenose dolphins which have been visiting the shallow waters for over forty years.

The number of dolphins that choose to visit the feeding area varies on a day to day basis. The feeding program is only a supplementary part of the dolphins diets. To ensure that all of the dolphins are still hunting for themselves and not becoming reliant on hand feeding, the number of fish each dolphin is fed on a given day is accounted for and strictly limited. We were fortunate to be there in low season and arrived in time for the last feeding session of the day which the least number of tourists attend. In high season the beach and jetty can be lined with hundreds of people straining to view the dolphins, I counted 25 people attending our session.

It was a beautiful experience watching the dolphins swimming a couple of metres away from you. Small turtles were also clearly visible swimming around in the clear waters, rays and sharks were spotted in the distance jumping into air. The man and I rotated between standing in the shallows with the dolphins and holding Ollie on the beach who was fascinated with the huge dark shapes bobbing about in the sea.

On the road to seeing the dolphins I called out to the man to slow down when I spotted a couple of emus further ahead on the road. By the time we reached them one had disappeared into the bushes while this bold one was happy to stick around for a few photos. He wasn't afraid of us and would have stuck his head inside the car if the man hadn't quickly wound up the window.

Although the dolphins are the main attraction, there are plenty of other interesting areas to see in Shark Bay, being a World Heritage Area most of them weren't dog friendly so we stuck with the places we were allowed to visit. Our favourite spot was called Little Lagoon which really wasn't so little. Shallow - yes, little - not really. It's a serene location with a few picnic tables and free BBQs sparsely located around the perimeter of the lagoon. After an initial visit we decided to return for a sunset BBQ and enjoyed a Fry's hamburger there (pictured below with Ollie blissfully chasing seagulls in the background).

I do apologise for the lack of food shots in this post, be assured that I’ll make up for it in the next couple of posts. Sunsets before 7pm meant that we were rarely eating dinner in decent light which wasn’t ideal for taking photos of meals. The few food photos I have included are the only ones I took during this part of our trip even though we did eat more a lot more than burgers. Once again, we relied on Indian heat and eat curry packets after long days of travelling and setting up camp as they were quick and easy to prepare. Some of the other meals I cooked on the camper stove were Thai red curries with tofu and vegetables and Linda McCartney veggie sausages and onions with vegetables. We ate baked beans on toast a few times, sandwiches were our standard lunches and there was plenty of snacking on nuts and fresh fruit in between meals.

We ended up cutting our camper trailer trip short but this was for a good reason. I’ll fill you in on the details in the next post!

Melbourne to Perth road trip

Hello dear readers, apologies once again for the lengthy break between posts. I’ve just returned from my longest holiday ever (as well as the biggest break I've had from full-time work) travelling around Western Australia. Previous vacations of around two weeks have always gone by too quickly so the man and I have been saving up our dollars and annual leave for a while so we could enjoy a month long holiday. After we adopted Ollie our travel plans developed into an Australian based road trip and dog friendly vacation as we didn’t feel it would be fair to leave our new family member in a boarding kennel for such a long period.

Map of our road trip including nightly stops

For those who are unfamiliar with where I live and/or with the geography of Australia, the distance from Melbourne in Victoria to Perth in Western Australia is approximately 3500 km by road. Most of the drive is through incredibly isolated terrain and includes crossing the Nullarbor Plain which runs across the Great Australian Bight. In the most remote areas, roadhouses (service stations selling fuel, snacks and souvenirs) are up to 200 km apart, often without a single residence in between.

A giant galah stands outside a shop in Kimba - "Half way across Australia"

Travelling from Melbourne to Perth with a dog meant that we were limited to camping along the way as the motel style accommodation at roadhouses don’t allow you to stay with pets. Knowing that it would be virtually impossible to find suitable food for us on the road trip, I planned ahead and prepared tofu bacon, chickpea eggs (adapted from Vegan Eats World) and delicious seitan pastrami from Vegan Diner. These items were kept cold in our Esky (Aussie brand of cooler/car fridge) along with dairy-free margarine, vegan cheeses, Fry’s chicken-style burgers, Linda McCartney sausages and salad items.

Cooking up breakfast on our little camping stove 

A portable pantry in the form of a large plastic tub accompanied us on our month long journey which was depleted and restocked several times. Its contents included tinned baked beans, kidney beans, chickpeas and tomatoes, olive oil, bread, rice, Vegemite (yeast extract), ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, Tapatio hot sauce, curry powder, cayenne pepper, mango chutney and snacks such as BBQ shapes, potato chips, nuts and dried fruit amongst other things.

Vegemite on toast (plus avocado for me) is what the man and I eat for breakfast on a regular basis and we continued this tradition throughout our travels. It was a challenge to perfect cooking toast over a naked flame on our gas cooking stove so we did have to suffice with the odd burnt section every so often. We enjoyed a big brekky on one occasion which was simply a matter of heating up precooked tofu bacon, chickpea eggs, baked beans and frying some tomatoes.

The spectacular Bunda cliffs 

Packing up campsites, driving long distances and setting up a new campsite at the end of each day meant that we didn’t have much time to stop and look at a lot of the sights along the way. Apart from roadhouse rests for fuel and toilets the only unscheduled stop I insisted on making was to one of the Bunda Cliffs lookouts close to the SA/WA border. This breathtaking spectacle of 120m high limestone cliffs above the crashing brilliant blue ocean was definitely worth a 10 minute break. Heaps of other photos on our 5 day trip across were taken from a moving vehicle which is not ideal although it did allow me to capture the ever changing landscapes along our hasty travels.

As we were spending somewhere between 7 to 10 hours on the road every day, a pre-made sandwich was usually on the lunch menu. Seitan pastrami, Vegusto vegan cheese, avocado, lettuce, tomato and cucumber with the man’s favourite combination of vegan mayonnaise, American mustard and hot sauce kept us satisfied until we crossed the border from South Australia into Western Australia. There are restrictions about bringing fresh fruit and vegetables into Western Australia which meant that we had to ditch our remaining salad items, scoff down the last of our fresh fruit and rely on packaged foods until we reached Kalgoorlie.

Whilst I’m on the topic of packaged foods, our saving grace over the month eventuated from a trip to a local Indian grocer just before our departure. I had been on the lookout for easy, nutritious meals and found some heat and eat curries on their shelves. There only appeared to be 3 vegan meals out of around 15 varieties of vegetable curries as most of the others contained butter or cream. If you do come across the Pattu range, the Baignan Bharta (eggplant curry), Bhindi Masala (okra curry) and Peas Pulav (basmati rice with green peas and cashews) are all vegan. I wasn’t convinced they would be the most authentic tasting meals or spicy enough for our tastes and planned to perk them up with additional spices but it didn't turn out to be necessary. These meals were such a pleasant surprise so we continued to try out other brands of Indian convenience foods from standard supermarkets during the rest our trip.

The sachets are placed into boiling water for 5 minutes or microwaved if you happen to have one handy. Even though some of the curries are rather oily, they aren't particularly high in calories and fat and are free of any preservatives and artificial colours and flavours. The Tasty Bite range are not as flavoursome as the Pattu curries but they are available at most large Australian supermarkets with the Indian foods and are clearly labelled as vegan or vegetarian meals. We particularly enjoyed Punjab Eggplant and Mumbai Mushrooms from the Tasty Bite range. Some nights we scooped the curries up with chappatis rather than bothering to serve them with rice.

Sunrise over wetlands at Port Wakefield

So that's pretty much how we ate whilst travelling remotely for 5 days. Burgers and a few other meals were consumed along the way which I didn't remember to take photos of. There will be more posts to follow about Perth eats and the rest of the food on our trip over the the next few weeks. For now I'll leave you with a recipe which the man fondly refers to as "eggies". I've been making this since testing Ethiopian But'echa (Fluffy scrambled chickpea eggs) for Terry Hope Romero's cookbook Vegan Eats World. My adaptation omits the chillies, includes some black salt and cuts down on a couple of steps and dishes.  

Sand dunes at Port Augusta with the Flinders Ranges in the background

Scrambled chickpea eggs aka. eggies (Adapted from Vegan Eats World)

1 cup besan/chickpea flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 2/3 cups warm water
3 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon black salt
¼ teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
pepper, to taste

Cook the besan in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly for 2 minutes or until the flour darkens slightly and smells toasty. Transfer the besan to a bowl. Pour in the olive oil and fry the onions for about 5 minutes or until they soften. Transfer the onions to a plate or small bowl.

Pour the water, lemon juice, black salt and sea salt into the saucepan. Start adding the besan into the saucepan a few tablespoons at a time, whisking all the time. After all of the besan has been added, use a spatula and continue stirring until the mixture becomes very thick and begins to pull away from the sides. Fold through the onions, turn off the heat and allow it to cool down for 10 minutes.

Drag a fork through the mixture to break it up into small lumps resembling scrambled eggs. Season with additional salt if required and black pepper, to taste.

This may be eaten warm or cold and it can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for at least a week. Adding curry powder and mayonnaise at the end is on my to-do list to create curried "eggs" for sandwiches.

Low fuss camping food

Over the last couple of decades camping trips with friends, family and the young man have been a popular pastime of ours. These trips have varied widely in locations yet there is a particular spot in between Seymour and Nagambie we have returned to more than others as dogs are permitted and to be able to swim in a creek with your pooch is so much fun for all. The other bonus is this place is it's generally not overcrowded with people which is often the case with more popular camping locations.

After a recent failed attempt trying out a new camping site that was full to the brim on a long weekend, the man and I were keen to head back to our rugged place of serenity. As we were only camping overnight I decided to make the food completely low fuss and picked up some supplies from Oasis bakery. This also meant packing less as we didn't need to worry about bringing the camp stove, gas bottle and cooking utensils.

Not long after arriving and setting up the tent, we constructed some delicious falafel wraps in a matter of minutes. They were made with mountain bread, hummus, falafels, a mixture of salad leaves, tomato, red onion and a dash of Tapatio hot sauce. Ollie doesn't usually get the chance to be involved in food photography and jumped at the chance on this occasion! He is very well mannered around food and didn't think about taking a bite.

Our dinner plates consisted of dolmades, more falafels, baba ganoush, hummus, olive bread and a bean stew. I was on the verge of buying a chickpea or bean salad whilst shopping at Oasis but after I spotted a bean stew the thought of a salad was immediately dismissed. The bean stew was labelled as being spicy yet the man thought it needed more oomph and stirred through a decent amount of hot sauce before we served it up. Although this is something you would usually eat warm we thoroughly enjoyed it as a cold dish. A similar spread was also enjoyed for breakfast the following morning.

These foods were perfect for an overnight camping trip and I can imagine they would also be great for remote road trips where vegan foods are limited. Even though I'm fortunate to have a fantastic Middle Eastern bakery nearby, some of the items we took away can also be sourced from most Australian supermarkets.

Ollie was mortified when we departed after his morning dip and uncharacteristically cried most of the car trip home. We are glad although not surprised that he enjoyed it as much as we did and are keen to take him for a longer camping trip soon.