FOWLER THAN WHAT?!

The day we left Madura Pass we travelled much further than we would normally. We covered over 500ks to reach Fowlers Bay late that afternoon. We only travel at around 90ks ph as a general rule, so we don't cover the same amount of ks per hour as we would simply driving a car.

We actually had to take the car and van off-road to reach Fowlers Bay and we felt quite proud of ourselves for our efforts. The road in to Fowlers, coming from the west is around 30ks of reasonable gravel/limestone road. I must point out that there are two roads in and out of Fowlers. One of these is partially bitumised and much worse than the one which is not sealed. This can change however, depending on which road has been more recently graded. Just something to be aware of folks. We spoke to quite a few people who took the partially sealed road, and they had some small horror stories to tell about the corrugations.

Once you reach the tiny hamlet of Fowlers Bay you locate the one and only store, which also doubles as the Caravan Park Office and book yourself a bay. You are told then to go and find one you like and to make yourself at home. This we duly did. The park is, like the 'town', tiny. Nice and neat, unisex toilets and showers and lots of nice shell-grit. If you are unfamiliar with shell grit, it is a popular material for paving in areas which are light on water. Lots and lots of small shells, crushed and laid constitutes shell grit. It is actually quite effective, but it does get into your sandals and into the van.

Fowlers is almost entirely devoted to fishing. Huge shifting sand dunes are slowly devouring the settlement. One hopeful fellow has his home on the market for around $170k, the back yard is half under sand already!! These dunes are almost pure white and make the area very Egyptesque - the sculptured sides of the dunes look to have been carved they are so symetrical and smooth. The place consists of a handful of beach shacks, one store, the caravan park and adjoining units and a jetty. The jetty is the focal point of the settlement. Every man and his dog (literally) head for the jetty for a spot of fishing. The most popular catch off the jetty seemed to be squid - sadly we TBBITW didn't succeed in his endeavours to catch us a squid, so we didn't have the pleasure of consuming any whilst we were there.

As the name implies, FB is on a large bay - the waters there are quite sheltered, and when the wind is not blowing, you can see straight to the bottom of the sea from the jetty. This is quite specky as the sea-grass beds there are very healthy and fish abound. As you sit there with your line in the water, you can actually see the fish approaching your bait, and pull the bait out if it is not a fish you are after - just amazing to sit there and watch the fishy population below you going about their day to day affairs.

FB was a very bountiful place for us - we had intended to stay only overnight, but TBBITW took a liking to the place and we ended up staying for 5 nights. As I thought we would be going through the quarantine station on the SA/WA border the next day, I had pretty much used all the fresh produce we had with us, saving just enough for that night. I was pretty pleased that my calculations had panned out so well. When we decided to stay longer, I was unperturbed, as we had plenty of frozen fare to see us thru'. Apparently, not everyone calculates so well, as whilst we were there, we were inundated with fresh produce that travellers heading in both directions wanted to off-load. We received lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, spuds, capsicum and celery. In the end, I was sharing this with whoever I could find that was willing to take some. One very nice local bloke gave us around one dozen freshly caught mullet - he didn't like them and was in the habit of giving away most of his catch. We hadn't tried them before and had heard many people say they were only a 'sh....t' fish, we were very pleasantly surprised and are now fans of mullet - freshly caught, we thoroughly enjoyed it.

TBBITW also caught a salmon of the jetty, he bled it well, and that too, despite all reports, was very nice. Perhaps it depends on how you cook it? Anyway whatever, we are apparently pagans as far as our fish is concerned as we have enjoyed it all so far.

FB was the first place we experienced the manic once a year fisher. It appears that many, mainly retired folk, go to these southern shores on an annual basis, to fill ALL their freezers with King George Whiting and squid. Some stay for weeks, catching their limit on a daily basis and stocking up multiple freezers to take home with them. Ostensibly, this lasts them for the next year until the next expidition.

We met yet another true Aussie character at Fowlers. A couple arrived in a van, accompanied by a small black and tan terrier. The bloke seemed quiet, but fairly normal, but the woman was something else. She was about as rotund as a matchstick and had the fag constantly hanging from her lips. Her hair was quite long and habitually dragged back into a tightly held pony-tail. She seemed to have ants in her pants and was rarely still. We discovered thru' chatting with her mate, that she is a fanatical fisher woman. Anywhere, any time, and in any weather, he informed us - inland or on the coast, she is to be found with line, net, hook, net etc. in hand pulling water creatures from their watery homes. It seems that she doesn't particularly like eating fish, (didn't look like she ate anything!), just absolutely loves catching them tho'. We met her out on the end of the jetty early one evening. TBBITW noticed that she didn't have a bucket with her in which to place her catch, when he mentioned this to her, she came over all embarrassed at having been so silly as to leave the bucket at the van. I have to mention here, that the lady in question, didn't speak below a low roar, and that her voice sounded very throaty indeed, due doubtless to the constant chain of ciggies that droop from her lips. "Tell Fred" she shouted at us, "that Mozzie forgot the f...ckin' bucket, and to bring the f....ckin' bucket down for 'er!" This request was repeated verbatim several times, unless we doubtless stupid looking couple with mouths agape, didn't understand the first 4 times or so. We duly went back with the message (also verbatim) to Fred, who dutifully set off to take her the 'f...ckin' bucket. He informed us that she would then stay out on that jetty until the early hours of the morning, supping on her port and happily catching anything that was unfortunate enough to jump on her line.

I must say, Fowlers was a great place for interesting people and events. One morning we awoke to the drone of a motor - a very unusual noise in that place, I can tell you. On investigation, it proved to be a "Mad Max" type construction - a sail attached to what appeared to be a dune buggy, was happily chugging along above the bay and the sand dunes. This character showed up for around 3 mornings in a row to entertain us.
We also had our first unpleasant caravan experience at FB. The weather for the main part had been quite good, but on the two days before we left it became increasingly hot and humid. Normally this wouldn't pose a problem for us as we have good air-con in the van, but at FB they generate their own power and you are not allowed to use air-con as it tends to knock out the power generator. This situation was exacerbated by the fact that the water supply from the taps was barely more than just a trickle and not a very tasty trickle at that. We had by this time, used all our own water. At one stage the temp was just under the 40 mark in the van. It may have been higher at times, that was just when we thought to check it. Just to put the icing on the cake, every fly and bug within a 500k radius descended on us - it was very unpleasant indeed - on that last night it was positively awful, the bugs were so bad, you couldn't even keep them out of the van. Sitting inside trying to avoid them, they were nesting in my hair and creeping up my nose and crawling around my eyes - as I said, not nice at all. Needless to say, we were quite glad to be away the following morning.