A Trio of National Parks

Moody Stirling Range National Park

Leaving Albany, we headed north for 90km’s or so to the Stirling Range N.P.  If we thought Albany was cold, it had nothing on the Stirling Range.  It rained for most of the journey and as we arrived the whole chain of mountains was shrouded in cloud.  We were planning to climb Bluff Knoll, the highest mountain in the range at 1073m, but taking one look at it that afternoon and we quickly decided to make camp and try again the next day.  We were set up by 2pm, and already it was cold enough to need to wear more layers of clothing than we had for 4 months.  The range is the only place in WA with regularly occurring snow in winter.

A bit less moody on top of Bluff Knoll

The next morning we were up and raring to go (well we were raring to go – the kids were mumbling to themselves and kicking stones sullenly around the camp-site).  Bluff Knoll was still topped by cloud but the weather was looking a lot better.  

The walk up was steep and cold with some fantastic views along the way. Even the kids started to enjoy it...especially on the way down...  The scenery was so different to what we have become used to, it was easy to forget what country we were in.

At the bottom of Bluff Knoll.
The boys are happy now!

Once down and warmed up we headed east with no fixed plan for where to stay that night.  We settled on another National Park, this one the Fitzgerald River N.P. about halfway between Albany and Esperance.  We didn't know anything about it other than it has been designated a UNESCO ‘Biosphere’ and as we drove through 50km’s of barren heath land, we were asking ourselves what all the fuss was about, but we reached the coast and soon changed our mind.   We camped right next to (another) beautiful white sandy beach at St. Mary Inlet, with the barren Barrens mountain range as a backdrop.  And we had the whole place to ourselves.

Lucky Bay at Cape Le Grand NP

The next day we cruised into Esperance and picked up supplies before moving 60km’s further east to yet another national park, this one called Cape Le Grand.  We stayed here for a couple nights.  This park was also blessed with stunning white sandy beaches and aquamarine seas.  If only it was about 10 degrees warmer, it would have been perfect...well nearly perfect.  If I was going to split hairs... This national park has sealed roads all the way in and showers (!) and so feels a bit more like a caravan park than a bush camp and when we were there was attracting plenty of  backpackers in campervans who had to be asked politely to turn their music down at midnight.  At least they had better taste in music than the crew at Lane Poole Reserve!  Still a stunning park to visit. Just need to dig up the bitumen.  The boys found cliffs to ‘rock-climb’ on and one day we walked over to the next bay and found an enormous whale jaw-bone on the beach.

Trying their hand at rock climbing

In the jaws of a whale...

Beautiful though this southern coastline is, eventually the cold damp weather got the better of us.  A quick look at the map and a check of the national weather forecast and we were heading quickly north to the historic goldmining town of Kalgoorlie for some heat and flies!