On the way to Perth

Nature's Window: a hole in a rock

After leaving Shark Bay we continued our journey South along the coast.  One thing we hadn’t realised when planning the trip was that at this time of year, this area of WA is notorious / famous for wind.  Re-reading our guidebooks we now noticed that this coast is described as ‘windsurfer and kite-boarder mecca’. Great news for the boarders I’m sure, but when your home is made from several square metres of heavy, sail-like canvas, not so much fun.    We arrived in Kalbarri, a twee little holiday town, and it was blowing a gale. The whole time we were there the trailer creaked and swayed ominously.   

We ended up staying in Kalbarri for four nights, which was probably a night or two longer than necessary (though it is actually nice to feel like we have stayed somewhere too long for a change!).  We had the idea that we could wait out the wind, just like we did in Cape Range, and so enjoy a few peaceful days by the sea.  Whilst we were there we saw dolphins playing in the bay, went fishing (and caught nothing but blowfish), fed the pelicans, drank coffee and mooched around the shops. We also went into Kalbarri National Park and went to the big attraction there; ‘Natures Window’, which is a rock with a hole in it. I was pleased to find a second-hand book shop to top up our reading supplies.  As we drove out of town, he wind was still strong enough to blow the car and trailer around the road.

We were heading to what we hoped would be a more sheltered camp in the lee of a headland called Sandy Cape, only a couple of hundred km’s north of Perth.  On our way we called into Geraldton; a fair sized town which we decided had a really good feel to it.  We decided that the kids were in need of a history lesson and so called into the Museum of Western Australia which was well organised and we all enjoyed.  As we walked through the door the kids were offered a museum ‘bingo’ sheet. This treasure hunt style game had them tearing around the museum at break-neck speed, hunting down a series of exhibits featured on the bingo sheet, clearly much to the consternation of serious museum goers. Of course Jules and I just frowned and ‘tutted’ along with everyone else and pretended that the boys were somebody else’s’ children.   That night we stayed in a free camp a few km’s outside of Geraldton, sheltered from the wind behind some big bushy trees (sheltered, that is, until the wind changed direction at one o’clock in the morning and once again we were out guying down flapping canvas in our, erm, nightwear).

The Pinnacles: Rocks in the ground

Next up we had what turned out to be another four night stop at Sandy Cape Recreation Park.  This camp area is on the beach but nestled in behind enormous sand dunes (which the kids had a ball sliding down on boogie-boards) and it was indeed a more sheltered spot than our last few camps. We got the best camp spot in the whole site – next to the beach, away from the main site and under a beautiful old shady tree (other campers came to describe it as the ‘rock-star site’).  We could often see them eying our site enviously as they walked past on the way for a swim.  We also made a day trip down to the Pinnacles, which are a bunch of rocks sticking out of the ground (The sky was a bit moody and overcast whilst we were there so I am not sure we saw them, literally, in their best light.  We walked through them, which was OK, and then drove through them, which was more fun). 

Yes, Yes, another white sandy beach...

Sandy Cape was a great place to relax for a few days and also gave us chance to adjust our mindsets about the rest of the trip: Over the last few weeks, the scenery has changed dramatically from desert to farmland.  We are now clearly out of The Wild Places and although the South coast we will no doubt again offer some relatively remote spots, we are feeling like the rest of the trip will have a distinctly different character.

Something to do with Gravity...

Talking of a change of scenery; rather than heading straight to Perth after Sandy Bay, we headed inland slightly and made for a two night stop in the small Avon Valley NP, 80Km’s or so north-east of Perth.  On the way there we decided that it was time for the kids to have a physics lesson and so we called in at the Gravity Discovery Centre near Gingin, which is the public education centre at the Australian International Gravitational Observatory (AIGO) full of interactive displays about all things gravity and cosmology related .  Though their eyes did seem to glaze over when I tried to explain to them the significance of the search for the Grand Unified Theory, they did seem to enjoy chucking water balloons off the top of a 45 metre tall steel tower (the leaning tower of Gingin), all in the name of science of course.

Can’t put it off any longer. Next stop: the CITY of Perth! 

Down to Shark Bay

Herald Bight - definitely a favourite

For the last ten days we have been making our way further south.  After leaving Exmouth we dropped back down below the tropic of Capricorn, which was marked with a little sadness.  I’ve noticed a couple of things have changed at these lower latitudes. 

Firstly, it has started to get distinctly cooler in the evenings – it has not been unknown for us to pull out jumpers these last few nights and retire to the tent to escape the chill.  

Secondly, I’m convinced that there is a touch less friendliness along the way now.  A controversial statement I know, but I have noticed that the ‘travellers wave’, that subtle raising of the first few fingers of the right hand from the steering wheel to acknowledge a fellow oncoming traveller, which was ubiquitous across Far North Queensland, The Territory and Northern WA, has decreased markedly as we have moved south.   (This wave, by the way, is not to be confused with the Yorkshire wave of my homeland, which is more of an almost imperceptible lifting of only the right index finger in recognition of a fellow countryside motorist). It’s an interesting point to note that even though the northbound southerners are clearly an unfriendly bunch, I am now so conditioned to wave at every car that comes our way, that each time we get to even a minor town, I feel a bit like Mick ‘Crocodile’  Dundee when he first hits the streets of New York and tries to introduce himself to every pedestrian he passes, with nothing but puzzled and suspicious looks in return.  Anyway, I digress...

Blowholes...

After Cape range we spent a night in Coral Bay, which is a sweet little seaside town, followed by a few nights at a good free camp at Point Quobba.  The weather by this point was getting pretty wild and wooly at times, but that did help to add a bit of gusto to the nearby Blowholes.

We’ve spend the last week or so in and around Shark Bay World Heritage Area. I have to admit to having my doubts before we arrived. The headline act for the area is of course the world famous dolphin feeding experience at Monkey Mia.  Sounds great, but we had heard a few stories of hundreds of people attending each feeding session and of course only very few being picked to actually feed the dolphins.  

The boys feeding 'Puck' the dolphin

However, as it turned out, when we were there, there were probably only thirty or so other onlookers and as luck would have it, the boys were picked to give a dolphin its fishy breakfast.  There is also a coffee shop on site – some development can be a positive thing.  All in all we had a really good morning there. 

We've had worse camps....

Better still, our next stop was a camp further along the peninsula at the (relatively) not as well known François Peron National Park.   This National Park is criss-crossed with 4WD only sand tracks (I like this form of ‘natural selection’:-) ) and after travelling along 50 km’s or so of these tracks we arrived at a perfect white sandy beach called Herald Bight where we pulled up right on the dunes and spent three days in what was probably my favourite camp of the whole trip!  Most of the time we either snorkelled, fished or just relaxed.  We even had company as John, Maggie, Fabien, Milly and Broughton, a family we had befriended along the way, were camped with us for part of the time

Fish...

Between us, we caught so many Garfish that we twice had fresh fish for dinner and on our last day I had to persuade the boys to take a break from pulling them out of the water (I really prefer to catch fish to eat, rather than for ‘sport’ and there are only so many Garfish that we could swallow, not to mention fillet!)  Even Jules got in on the action one afternoon, pulling out another nice little fish.  A truly beautiful spot.

Of course, as previously mentioned; the laws of Ying and Yang dictate that there has to be a balance in life and so, predictably after such a serene few days, we had to have a little drama before we left...

Too busy digging to take photos, so here is a shot of
the boys on a mission

That beautiful soft white sand that we had so enjoyed, obviously did not want us to leave so soon, and once again, the trusty anchor-trailer lived up to its name.  Having hitched up and jumped in the car to depart,  our wheels immediately dug themselves into the deep soft sand and we moved forward not an inch.  It took us a hot and sweaty hour and a half of digging, removing a fair bit of the weight from the car and trailer and using the car mats as traction-aids, before we were able to finally extricate ourselves.  So, several hours after we planned, we arrived back in the pleasant little town of Denham, where we quite rightly treated ourselves to lunch (with dessert!) and lots of cold drinks. 

Of course, getting stuck is all part of the fun of off-road travel, and in truth I’m sure none of us would have minded getting stuck in such a great spot for a little while longer...

To Exmouth and Cape Range

Try this: find yourself a map of Australia, a pin, and a piece of string.  Fix the string to the pin and put the pin in the map through ‘Sydney’. Now draw an arc with the string ‘til you find, the furthest  you can get from Sydney as the crow flies. 

Can’t be bothered?  OK then, I’ll tell you;  It’s Cape Range NP just below Exmouth, which is, of course, where I’m writing this update from.  We are also pretty much halfway around in terms of time – three months gone already!  I did feel a bit melancholy when I realised this.  I mentioned it to Jules and she said, “Excellent, we’ve still got three months to go”.  Probably sums up the differences in our personalities perfectly.

It terms of actual kilometres travelled, the keen sighted will have noticed that I stopped recording daily distances travelled fairly early on.  Deadlines and statistics seem to have become increasingly unimportant.  We leave when we leave, travel ‘til we stop and stay ‘til we feel like moving on again.  It’s rare that I know what day of the week it is anymore.  That said, I can report that since leaving Manly Vale in August, we have travelled just short of 16,000 km’s and that may well be around half way in terms of distance as well... so each kilometre we do from here on in is taking us closer to home.

Anyway, time for a quick update of the last week or so.  It will have to be quick though as I’m being plagued by enormous flying ants that are crawling over my lap –top screen like some kind of funky screen saver.

We left Karijini and headed to the mining town of Tom Price. We only stayed on night, but did take a tour of the Rio Tinto mine of the same name.  It’s hard to appreciate the magnitude of these types of operations until you see them up close.

Next we headed North to Millstream Chichester NP.  It’s not a particularly well known national park, but is a great place to spend a few days relaxing. The temperature touched 40 degrees, but we didn’t care as we were camped on the banks of the Fortescue River and alternated between sitting in the shade of a tree, reading, and jumping into the river to cool off whenever all that activity became too strenuous.

Finally we headed West again, via the dirt road to the mining town of Pannawonica until we hit the coast -road again and then onto Cape Range NP (with a quick stop in Exmouth for supplies and coffee).

Ningaloo Reef runs just offshore of Cape Range NP and has some excellent snorkelling and fishing.  Unfortunately, we had some big winds on the day we arrived. Even the most beautiful white beaches and aqua-marine water is difficult to appreciate when even a quick walk along the beach results in a layer of skin being sand-blasted away.  On the second day the wind dropped and what a beautiful place this became.  We snorkelled every morning and fished every afternoon.  

At first the Ospreys that often hunted by our beach camp were catching more fish than we were, but once we found our mojo, we managed to pull out a few good sized fish.  In the end we stayed for five nights and could have probably stayed longer.   

To be honest, it was only  the need to replenish our food, drinking water and alcohol supplies, and the desire to wash (in something other than saltwater) that made us leave. 

Karijini

The falls at Fern Pool

Two big drives from Broome and we made it to (at the risk of sounding like the visitors guide) one of the most stunning, and the second largest National Park in Australia – Karijini NP.  On the way we overnighted at a place called Cape Keraudren, on the coast, just below 80 mile beach.  If you ever get a chance to visit this small, secluded nature reserve, my advice is; don’t.  Right from the start I had my doubts.  The scenery was reminiscent of the Yorkshire dales or a windswept Scottish lowland; barren rolling hillocks and not much to see.  When we arrived there was a strong onshore wind blowing and we steeled ourselves for a potentially sleepless night keeping the trailer upright.  As it happened, we did have a sleepless night, but it was the lack of wind that was, indirectly at least, the cause.

Cape Keraudren or the Yorkshire Dales?

It’s well known of course that when a bit of a gust is blowing it helps to keep the flying insects away, and so that evening as we barbequed over an open fire, we did not have a problem with any bitey things. I was starting to warm to the place.  

At around midnight, after  we were happily tucked up in bed, the wind dropped and the bitey things came out.  Of course, as we were in our tent asleep, all should have been well, but it turns out (and hear the comparison with Scotland is reinforced)  that Cape Keraudren has a bit of an issue with midges.  Midges which it transpired are small enough to move through the mesh on our tent windows as easily as a movie ghost through a closed door...  So, as our tent began to slowly fill with a cloud of these horrible creatures, we all began to stir and scratch.  Eventually the kids came and joined us in our bed complaining of the itchy, bitey things and pretty soon we were all cowering under sheets and uncomfortably waiting out what was left of the night.  The next morning it was clear that the kids had suffered the worst, with each of them covered from head to toe in something like two hundred bites each. Five days on and these are still making us scratch ...  Needless to say we packed up pretty quickly and completed the journey to Karijini. 

Handrail Pool, Weanu Gorge

We arrived in Karijini at midafternoon. The temperature was close to forty degrees and having just escaped one flying torment, we were greeting by another, more classically Australian flying torment – the flies!  This wasn’t helping us form a very positive opinion of this part of our trip...  The next morning the flies were no better and the temperature was climbing quickly.  We’d planned three or four nights here, but I was already starting to plan for a move that afternoon.  As far as I was concerned, it was a long way to come to be plagued by flies in roasting temperatures, just to see some more bloody gorges! I couldn’t se that anything was going to change my mind.  That is, until we actually saw the gorges. Then it quickly became obvious why this National Park has become such a treasured experience to those who visit. 

Getting our feet wet on this one...

Each of the gorge walks had something special to offer; great walks through dramatic, towering walls, permanent spring fed waterfalls and cool clear swimming holes. The various walks were graded on level of difficulty and skill / fitness required with anything more than a Class 5 requiring climbing and abseiling accreditation as well as ropes and safety equipment.   As we didn’t have these (knew that we would forget to pack something!), we contented ourselves with these fabulous Class 5 walks especially around Hancock and Weanu Gorge.  These treks involve precarious climbs along and up steep cliffs (with help from the occasional ladder), wading and swimming through long narrow passageways filled with icy cold water and steep and slippery slides down even narrower cracks in the ground.  The kids were transformed from children who could be seen to physically crumble at the mere mention of a gorge walk to ones who were asking to go back and do some of these walks for a second time! 

Karijini Sky

To top it off, each evening, when the flies went to bed at 6.30 sharp, we were treated to magnificent sunsets and a giant orange full moon rising behind our camp as we relaxed over a drink or two.  

So, my advice in this case is, if you ever get the chance to visit this increasingly well known national park, do it!  And do it soon because this nation park is stuck slap bang in the centre of the Pilbara with enormous mining operations on all sides.  I’m not sure how long it will be able to hold out.

Jules navigates 'The Ladder' in Hancock Gorge

Broome and Cape Leveque

The obligatory sunset on Cable Beach shot - Thanks Jules!

Broome is one of those places that it is easy to get stuck in.  After a couple of weeks on the Gibb River Road, Broome’s cafes, restaurants, shops, and beaches are a very welcome distraction.  I’ve heard that people either love or hate Broome.  We loved it. 

It was Daniel’s eighth birthday whilst we were in town and we celebrated with, amongst other things, a trip to the late Malcolm Douglas’s Crocodile Park.  Malcolm played a defining role in our childrens’ upbringing (not as defining as Bear Grylls, obviously, but defining none the less) - How else would they have learnt how to cook a recently caught Mangrove Jack over coals on the beach, or how to whip up a quick Pavlova in a camp oven, or any number of other essential bush survival skills? –  so we were all keen to visit the park. We weren’t disappointed.  The guided tour is a must-do, and rates higher than many similar experiences for us.  The whole thing is well run and full of laid back WA charm, albeit, as one guide put it; “very quite now that Malcolm is gone”. 

The road to Kooljamam

I’m not quite sure what else we did to fill our time in Broome but it seemed to pass very pleasantly.  Eventually (on day 6) we summoned up the motivation to pack up the trailer and head off on the 200km journey north up the Dampier Peninsula to Cape Leveque.  About half of the road is nice flat bitumen, but the other is a sandy and roughly corrugated track which, due to its convex nature, easily fills with water and is often closed after rain.  It was in fact closed for part of our time in Broome, but after a few days of glorious sunshine it opened again. The road is known to be a tough one, but the earlier rain had taken the edge off the corrugations and so with the exception of one or two heart stopping dives into deep pits of bulldust, it was great fun to drive up there. 

Snorkelling at Cape Leveque

We stayed at Kooljaman at Cape Leveque (one of several locally owned and run campsites and wilderness retreats along the road to the tip). There is no free camping on the Dampier peninsula and bookings (and in some cases permits) are required to visit. Whilst at first this sounded a bit too constrained for our liking, it has been done really well and I can imagine that if the land was opened up further, it may well ruin this amazing spot. As it turned out, this place was quite possibly the nicest place we have been to on the trip so far!  Certainly a big call to make, but picture this (and you will need to picture it as, unbelievably, we were so busy relaxing and soaking up this beautiful place that we hardly took any photos at all!)....so, picture this; we camped on the top of the cliffs at the tip of the Dampier Peninsula with perfect white sandy beaches at either side – on the East side; secluded swimming and snorkelling beaches, particularly good if you dropped your tyre pressures (here I go again; 18psi for those who are interested) and drove for a K or so up the beach. Then on the western side; great fishing (Elliot managed to pull out a Queen fish and a Long Tom within five minutes of each other), and stunning landscapes as the deep red cliffs meet the white sands - the perfect spot for a sun-downer or two. 

Not a bad spot for a sun-downer...

One afternoon we visited the barramundi hatchery at the aboriginal community of One Arm Point where the kids got to hand feed the big fish (not for the faint hearted) and pat turtles. To top it all off, there was an onsite restaurant at the campsite that served more than passable coffee!  In the end we only stayed a couple of nights but regretted not staying longer almost as soon as we pulled away.

I’m not sure when we will make it back to such a far flung corner of the country, but we’re already making plans to try.

The Gibb River Road

The Gibb River Road

It’s been a fair while between posts due to the lack of internet access on the Gibb River Road (who’d have thought it?).

We’ve been travelling for ten days between Kununurra and Broome and have covered about 1700 km’s.  The road itself was much easier than we were expecting; long sections of good gravel and relatively easy corrugations. It is however, notoriously hard on tyres and although we did not have a problem (we were running at a fairly low 26 psi), we heard of plenty of people who did and in fact had to stop and help out an elderly French couple in a hired Troopy who had done 3 tyres in as many days (but when we checked they were running at 45 psi).  However, before I thrill you further with more talk of tyre pressures and the like, here is the story of our journey along the Gibb River Road...

First stop was El Questro Station – according to some, the largest station in Australia and also a ‘Wilderness Resort’ complete with shop, bar, and accommodation priced between $17 for a ‘bush’ camp-site and several thousand for a room in the ‘homestead’.  I’ll let you decide which one we opted for.  Just the same, a nice place to stop over and we stayed for a couple of nights before moving on to some more genuine bush camping (no bar!) down the road at Russ Creek.

Moody Weather Over The Kimberley

About half way along the road we had the option to turn left and detour a few hundred km’s north to the beautiful Mitchell Falls.  The road up to there is rougher than the Gibb and we had been experiencing a few short thunder storms over the last few days, but we reasoned that as long as it didn’t rain anymore whilst we were up there, then we should be OK.   

We camped at Drysdale River Station the night before and were treated to an impressive lightening show.  It was clear the next morning that a fair bit of rain had fallen on the road to Mitchell falls but as we had decided to leave the camper- trailer (now affectionately known as the “anchor-trailer”) at Drysdale and sleep in a high quality, 3-man, $50 tent that we had bought a few days earlier in Kununarra, we weren’t overly worried. The drive up was still a bit of fun as much of the road had several inches of standing water on it.  Not an issue in itself of course, but still a bit tense as you just never know when you are going to hit a deep pot -hole or a patch of mud.  Still, at least it wasn’t actually raining...  Until we drove into the campsite at Mitchell falls, that is, whereupon the heavens opened and we ended up sitting in the car for an hour waiting for a break in the weather so that we could rig up a make-shift shelter to take refuge under.  At one point we went for a bit of a drive a few km’s back down the road, but the going was tough – like driving on grease – so we made our way back and waited patiently for sunshine.

The weather did clear and after a bit of food and an adrenaline rush when our camp was visited by a couple of funnel-web spiders (quickly dispatched with a six foot tent pole, but that night we did put on long trousers and shoes...and tucked our trousers into our socks J), we all squeezed into our 3-man tent for an uneasy night’s sleep.  It was all worth it though when we awoke to beautiful sunshine and made the very enjoyable 8km round trip trek to the falls. We had no more rain that day and in fact the road back to Drysdale was easier than the trip up. 

Next up was Manning Gorge where the main excitement was a striped brown snake about a metre and a half long, that slithered over a neighbouring campers foot one evening.  No sooner had the screaming finished. than Elliot was over in their camp, reptile book in hand, confidently pronouncing it to be the venomous, but not dangerous (how does that work?!?), Brown Tree Snake.  True to its nature, it proceeded to climb a nearby tree so we are assuming Elliot was on the mark again and could rest easy.

The journey along the Gibb River road is really all about walks to gorges, springs and falls.  By this point in addition to the above mentioned Manning Gorge, we had visited a number such as Zebedee Springs (busy thermal springs), Emma Gorge (long hot walk, very cold water at the end... beautiful!), Little Merton Falls and Big Merton Falls and of course Mitchell Falls.  It is possible to get a bit ‘gorged-out’ along the way, but if this happens; be sure to make the journey to Bell Gorge and Windjana Gorge and your appreciation for gorges will be rekindled!

Don't look now Elliot, but...

We stayed at the National Parks campsite at Windjana which is a well run and neat spot with the beautiful and towering gorge walls as a backdrop and a large population of freshwater crocs.  (It also has flushing toilets and solar showers – what luxury!)  It’s close enough to Derby and Broome for a weekend visit and so probably gets busy in the middle of the season, but at the end of the season it was pretty quiet. As it was such a nice spot, we decided on a two night stay.  This gave us the chance to make the short drive down to Tunnel Creek, which turned out to be one of the highlights of the Gibb;  you get to wade through underground pools of up to waist deep water, through a kilometre and a half of pitch black limestone tunnels, whilst five different species of bat fly overhead and, very occasionally, you spot a pair of shining amber discs as your  torch light is reflected in the eyes of one of the freshwater crocodiles that you are sharing the cold dark pool with.   OK, so thinking about it; this might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but we had a ball!

Tunnel Creek

Just to prove it was nearing the end of the season, on our second night at Windjana, and last night on the Gibb River Road, a sizable thunder storm passed overhead at around midnight, causing the whole site to flood to a depth of six inches or more in places (a bit of an issue if the waterproof sides of the floor of your camper trailer only extend to about three inches high).  As the lower area of the trailer rapidly developed into our own indoor paddling pool, we quickly relocated everyone and everything onto the top bed for a cramped and soggy night’s sleep.  Whilst we were mid clean-up the following morning, the park ranger came around to let us know that, though they were not forcing us to leave, they had closed the campsite and the road in, and that the Gibb River Road could well be closed anytime soon, so unless we wanted to become semi-permanent guests, we might want to consider beating a hasty retreat...  We did just that and a few hours later we were cooling off in the pool as the sun set over Broome’s beautiful Cable Beach...

So, that’s the story of the Gibb River Road for us. Undoubtedly the best way to experience the stunning Kimberley region and well worth another visit!

The Bungle Bungles

Just a quick update his morning before head off to the Kimberley (which may mean no new posts for a couple of weeks).

We decided to make the 500km detour down to Purnululu National Park and the Bungle Bungles.  Really glad we did as the scenery was stunning enough to make our children who, when presented with any kind of beautiful view usually respond with; “Yeah. What? I’m hungry, did you bring any food? My feet hurt. (etc...)”, to say things like; “Wow” and; “Cool”.  Must be good.  They were especially impressed with the trek through Echidna Chasm which involves a walk of a few km’s through a narrow and ever tightening chasm.  With sheer walls in some places only an arms width to each side and reaching over 100 metres high, it’s not for the claustrophobic.  As we made our way deeper into the rock, and with my Akubra firmly planted on my head, I fancied that I could hear the Indiana Jones theme tune playing faintly in the background...

In the last few days we have also camped in the shade of Boab trees whilst cooking dinner over an open fire and had a few days rest and relaxation on the banks of Lake Kununurra; fishing whilst watching and being watched by the freshwater crocs that bask in the water only a few feet from our camp.  What a tough life.