WA - Shark Bay

We drove up to the Hamelin Homestead station and booked in for a couple of nights. We were hoping that we might have left at least some of the flies behind, but no. They are just as bad here so it is on with the fly nets and stay inside and plan what to do as I am feeling like the Pied Piper of Hamelin but for flies and not rats!

For me, this was an easy exercise - we were going to go to Steep Point, the western most part of the Australian mainland and the last of our cardinal points (we have been to Cape Byron (eastern most), Cape York (northern most), Wilson's promenade (mainland southern most) and the point below Cockle Creek (Tasmanian southern most) as well as the geographical centre of Australia as well) so it just had to be done.

We set off at about 8.30am on a round trip of about 350klms, most of this on heavily corrugated dirt roads with some soft sand thrown in for fun. 

The roads were actually pretty bloody awful and we very quickly found ourselves dropping tre pressures down to 20psi all round to try to soften the ride. It worked, but it was still a journey comprising a continual series of hammer blows through the vehicle.

On the way in we met up with a delightful German couple (Bjorn and Kristine) driving their old model Prado and they asked to tag along for safety's sake. We were happy to have them along as well - they were good and intelligent company.

So, we drove the length of the peninsula, driving some difficult looking terrain (although it was all handled easily enough in the end) and eventually making it out to the Steep Point itself.

Tick! 

We decided that we should perhaps wean ourselves off the bush camping and head into a town in the hope that the flies might be less in town where they don't have heaps of livestock poop to thrive amongst, so the next day we went into Denham where we booked into the Blue Dolphin caravan park.

Oh joy! Not only can we now get radio, mobile phone/internet and a TV picture (Geelong play North Melbourne this weekend), but the flies are much less of an issue than they were in Kalbarri or Hamelin.

Denham is a lovely little town. It seems much friendlier than Kalbarri and has the most gorgeous bay front along the main street. We have a few things to do here that have been on the bucket list so with that, and the "pay for two but stay for three" offer at the van park and the comparative lack of flies, we have booked in for six nights.

After we set up we took a walk along the bay front and on impulse booked ourselves into a bay cruise that promised to show us dolphins and dugongs and turtles. As the cruise leaves from Monkey Mia (and despite the touristy aspect of this) we booked the trip for the next day.

So, the next day and it was an early start as the dolphins come in at about 7.45am and we had to get there first - a 26klm drive.

Was it worth it? You bet! The dolphins came in (seven of them I think, including one calf) and they cruised up and down the beach edge just checking us out. It is a weird experience really, having a dolphin look you over. Then came the feeding and then we just sat back and watched. 

A coffee and a bacon and egg roll followed before we boarded the Aristocat2 - this is a decent sized catamaran and we motored off to a local pearl farm where we learned how they farm pearls and had the opportunity to buy some. We left them behind, but it was really interesting. 

Leaving the pearl farm they hoisted the sails and we swept off across the bay in search of dolphins, dugong and turtles  and found all three. Turtles are always interesting as they pop their heads up and lok around, and dolphins are something that we feel a great deal of affection for, but the dugongs were special. Weighing up to half a tonne they are strange looking beasts that move quite slowly but there is a majesty to them in some strange way. 

The cruise took up most of the day and we drove back to Denham happy and looking forward to the fish and chip supper we had promised ourselves. Eaten in a chippy on the front and watching the sunset, it was lovely. 

The next day was ANZAC Day and the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. We got up early and walked to the Denham shrine where we took part in the Dawn Service. It seemed as iff the whole town was there and it was a sobering moment, but then we were all invited to a breakfast at the town hall where we enjoyed bacon, eggs, sausage and onion (yeah - weird eh?) together in the hall and chatted to some interesting people. 

We had a few chores to do (I needed to check all the nuts and bolts on the 'jero - the Steep Point drive had loosened a couple of things due to the jarring corrugations and I needed to makesure that thingslike the tow bar were still safely attached) so we got stuck into those before taking a drive out the the coastal cliffs and wandering into an aquarium out there for a coffee. 

Sunday 26th April - today we did the drive up through the Francois Peron NP to get to Cape Peron. 40+ klms of soft sand overlaying jarring corrugations had me lowering tyre pressures to 18psi as we checked out the sights. Sadly, the flies were just bloody awful out there and even when we tried for some relief by going for a swim at "Gregories" we were hassled by them. On two occasions I had a fly sucked down my snorkel tube and into my mouth (I only swallowed one of them) that caused me to lft my head and splutter and spit. Yep - you can't get away from the buggers, even underwater.

Underwater was cool though. There is a small section of reef there and I was able to spot a heap of fish in all interesting tropical colourings. I love this sort of thing! 

The scenery was intersting and beautiful (as you'll see from the photos), but the flies just made it miserable.

One thing that was a little strange was the fact that the tow ball cover disappeared one night leaving us with a greasy towball that left black marks on our legs if we brushed against it. I covered t with cling wrap and an elastic band and searched the town for a shop that sold tow ball covers. No luck there so I resigned myself to using the cling wrap until we got to a town big enough to have an auto parts store.

The, on the morning that we were packing up to leave, the tow ball cover reappeared! Who had it or why they decided to return it we don't know.

One other thing that was not so much fun was the fact that someone appears to have reversed into our Pajero and whacked their tow ball into the off side rear corner. Just cosmetic damage, but annoying on a virtually brand new car. 

We are off to Carnarvon now - I hope the flies aren't as bad there!

WA - Kalbarri

Leaving Perth we headed north and soon left suburbia behind. We want to get into some real camping in some rally beautiful places and leave things like the caravan parks behind. So we picked out a place called Point Louise which is just a little North of Jurien Bay. We drove through Jurien Bay to get there and were once again amazed at how places have grown since we saw them last. Jurien Bay was a small block of half a dozen shops and businesses some years ago but now it is a decent sized town.

Our decision to go to Point Louise was looking better and better and when we drove down the dirt road to get to the free camping spot overlooking a pristine beach and sheltered by the point itself we were proved right.

This little spot was so pretty we decided to stay here for a few nights and the relax and let the city bleed out of our pores. As you can see from the photos, it is a pretty little place.

We drove from Point Louise on up to and through Geraldton, stopping a few klms North of the city to camp at Coronation Beach. This place is a beach at the foot of a line of hills and it looks out over a lagoon protected from the ocean by a reef. Waves can be seen breaking over this reef all the time, but only the slightest of swells reaches the beach itself.

It is gorgeous.

However, every Eden has its dark side and here it is the flies, small bush flies, which make it difficult to enjoy the outdoors as they swarm over everything.

And we were forced to wear these stupid things.

They drove us to spend a day in Geraldton where we had to do some laundry and food shopping chores anyway.

The flies disappear at sunset and we have seen no mozzies so the evenings can be enjoyed, sitting comfortably outside and watching the cloud of the milky way stretch across the sky with all the other stars gathered around it.  

however, the flies got to us eventually so we packed up and trundled up the road to Kalbarri.

Mixed feelings about this place. The townsfolk don't seem very friendly, but the scenery is magnificent. Perhaps they are just fed up of sharing it.

We are camped out on the banks of the Murchison river on a cattle station. This place, Murchison House, is a working station with the river flowing through it but they are getting into the tourism industry in a small way with camping provisions and quad bike and canoe safaris and the like. 

It is a beautiful place, but just like everywhere else along this coast, it is afflicted by a fly plague. 

We have bought better fly veils (the old ones let the little buggers get in at the bottom) and survive the things, but it is a pain. Back at camp we spend more time inside the van than we would like, but once the sun goes down they all disappear and we are left with a cool evening and clear skies filled with more stars than you'd think possible.

The main reason for coming here was to visit the parks and so we drove out to see the river gorges. Natures Window is probably the best known sight in the place so that was where we headed off first. The rock formation (see the pics below) is indeed stunning, but we hadn't expected to find a smooth bitumen car park with space for maybe fifty cars and a dozen buses complete with shaded areas to picnic under and we'll set up viewing vantage points. The walk to the formation is also smooth bitumen for most of the way.

These photos show us at Nature's Window - one from each side.

What happened to adventure?

West Loop was another lookout that we visited. At least this one had just a rough track to it, but it was a good lookout.

Z Bend was the next place and this was magnificent indeed. You can see the adventure hungry guys who built a rope bridge in the pictures below.

Back to Kalbarri for a beer and a delicious feed of red emperor and chips eaten while watching the glorious sunset.

The next day the flies were just as bad as ever but we thought we'd take a drive out to the coastal cliffs and have a look at some of the formations out there. After all, the sea breezes would be sure to blow the flies away wouldn't it?

The answer is no - in fact the flies were worse than ever out there and for much of the time we were just the centre of a buzzing, shimmering swarm of tiny black bush flies. We were fortunate indeed that we had bought the new fully closed in fly nets as at least our heads were spared the crawling over that the rest of us suffered. It was so bad that the camera's auto focus kept getting confused and focusing on the flies instead of the scenery I was trying to shoot.

Back to the car and back to the homestead to shelter inside until the evening when they magically disappear.

We had collected some wood and decided to have a camp fire this evening. I even bought some flour to make up some damper. As it turned out though, we had some new neighbours and we spent our possible baking time chatting to them instead.

They were Julian and Chris, and their two delightful boys Sam and James. It is amazing the nice people you get to meet out on trips like this. Anyway, we had a great evening together and all enjoyed the fire together, especially James who was happy as to be asked to put another log on the fire! 

Tomorrow we get to leave this place. It could have been so great, but the flies spoiled it for us.

WA - Perth and Surrounds

Bunbury was our first port of call once we left the forest sanctuary of Quinninup and as we drove the couple of hundred klms to get there the weather worsened and the scenery changed from the dramatic tall forests of the Great Southern Forests to more rolling farmland and houses.

Lots more houses than we expected to see - Bunbury, and all its feeder towns, has grown immensely and it seemes to have lost its charm. Maybe it was the rain though as that will sour the best opinions.

We decided we needed to find a van park as the opportunity for free camping is very limited in these populated areas, so we settled into one outside of the town in East Picton.

This van park is mostly used by permanent dwellers so it wasn't the most welcoming looking place, but apart from the ablutions cleaning times it was good enough for a generally rainy couple of days. Ablutions cleaning? Yeah, the toilets and showers were sparkling clean andnice to use, but why they close them between 8am and 10am to handle the cleaning I just don't know. It was a most inconvenient time for slack arsed, late risers like us. 

So, Bunbury - well, the place has had money spent on it and everything is smart and new and clean, but it rained a lot and we decided to pack up and move on to escape the misery. 

As we headed to Perth we thought we'd drop in on the sleepy little river/sea side town of Mandurah. We had paid many a visit to this lovely little place when we lived in Perth some seven years ago, so when we found that it had metamorphosed into a city with kilometres of shopping and nowhere to park a caravan we were severely disappointed. We didn't even get out of the car (well, we had nowhere to park) and we headed back onto the Kwinana Freeway which seemed to be carrying a heck of a lot of traffic with much of it nose to tail at 110kph in the rain. Because of my cautious approach to rain wet roads and my desire to keep a decent stopping distance between me and the car in front I was constatly having cars pulling into that gap. So much so that it felt like I was reversing down the freeway at times.

And then we hit the traffic jam. Caused by nothing more than the volume of traffic, we were stopped for periods of time and just crawling for others. However, we eventually reached a van park in Gwelup in the north of Perth and booked in for five days.

The first day we had a little auto electrical work done on the car and just sheltered from the rain. The second day (the Saturday) we checked out Perth's shopping and just like the roadside stalls further south, the shops have a huge choice of fresh (I mean VERY fresh) fruit and veggies. We poor ittle Darwinians are just not used to this sort of thing! One place we found was called the Sud Shed and it is a supermarket owned by a consortium of local farmers who put their produce through it - superb food and cheap as. 

We also caught a movie - Kingsman - that was a hoot. If you get a chance, go and see it. It's great. Afterwards we tok a walk across the park to a pub where Karen won the meat tray raffle. We won't need to buy meat for a while! 

Sunday is quiet in Perth as they don't have Sunday shopping so we headed off to the Swan Valey to inspect the wineries and just get out of suburbia for a while. It seems to have been a popular idea as the place was crowded so we found a pub that had been a favourite of ours years ago (the Rose and Crown in Guildford) and settled in to watch Geelong get thrashed by Fremantle on the TV. Ah well, that's life. Nice beer and nice place though. 

On Monday we had booked a trip out to Rottnest Island. We never made it there when we lived here before so it was something on our bucket list.

We hired bicycles to get around on and I can confirm that while you never forget how to ride a bike, your butt certainly forgets how to absorb the impacts without causing bruising and pain that lasts for some days afterwards. Still, we had a heap of fun pedalling around and checking out the sights.

WA - The Great South (Quinninup)

We left Denmark rather sadly as it is just about the perfect place to be. At least until it gets too cold anyway! Seriously though, we loved the feel of the place and it ticks all the boxes for any future life of ours with the exception of its distance from family and friends.

Worth thinking about though! 

We trundled on down the road and ended up in Quinninup. This place is just south of Manjimup and east of Pemberton but is a township distinctly its own place. It has a poorly run caravan park and a pub and just a few houses, but it is in spectacularly beautiful country - the southern forests of WA.

Easter Thursday (Maundy Thursday) - We arrived, camped up and went into Manjimup to get a few groceries and check out the town. Nice country town really. Unlike many country towns, this seems to be doing OK as almost none of the shops or buildings were empty and there were lots of people in town and looking prosperous. 

We called into the pub (naturally) and were impressed with the place. No spit'n'sawdust here, but a fine building with decent furniture and decor. 

The number of farm gate fruit and veggie sales as we drove in and out impressed us too and we bought some fine fresh veggies and avocadoes to take back with us at very reasonable prices. Yum!

Good Friday - Today we spent following the tourist drives and checking out the attractions. Chief among these were the Diamond and Gloucester trees. These trees have a staircase built around them from steel bars that have been driven into the trees (see the pics) and at the top is a lookout platform that was used for forest fire spotting. Scary stuff really. 

Easter Saturday - The farmers market was on in Manjimup so off we trotted and picked up some more nice food as well as some intersting lins in cider and BBQ sauces etc. The trees along the road are all turning autumn colours and together with the bright blue sky it made a spectacular day out.

We decided to take a bit of a walk in the woods and headed out to a nat park with a section called One Tree Bridge which is where the (old and now replaced) bridge was constrcted of one tree laid across the river with a flat platform tacked on top.

I suppose it was an engineering feat at the time - damned big tree too!

From there we took a walk through the karri forest and were amazed by the trees there. They are huge, majestic and stunningly beautiful. Loved it!

We returned home with more food and then repaired to the Quinninup pub for a beer. 

Easter Sunday - Well if there is a group of people from a 4WD club (the Foothills 4WD Club) camped out near you what else do you do but tag along with them on one of their drives.

Di we have fun? You bet we did.  We headed out and into the Nat Park and drove some of the trackes there (including Moons Crossing) before we ended up on the Summertime Track. This has this name as it is only navigable in summer, but it proved little obstacle but of great interest as it wove from the forest through the heath and into the dune country behind the beach.

This pic of of Moons Crossing

Yep - we ended up on the beach where everyone lowered their tyre pressures. I dropped mine to 23psi as I have some relatively low profile tyres on the Pajero and off we went.

(Note - anyone not involved in 4WDing might want to skip the following)

Hmmm - I seemed to be fightng the 'jero all the way to get anywhere, but as everyone else was whistling along I stuck with it. At one point I stopped to turn off all the electronic aids, but while I could kill the VSC I couldn't kil the traction control unless I dropped the rear diff lock in. This was a mixed blessing as while I didn't need to worry about the TC or VSC cutting in and causing me to dig into the sand, it did try to force me to drive straight on any time I wanted to steer off to one side or the other. 

I think I will have to do some more experimentation to get a better understanding of how to drive this vehicle in these conditions.

This is what the beach looked like:

However, fighting the steering the whole way we ended up driving around to set up a photo opportunity next to a fresh water lagoon which required me to cross the lagoon and then trurn left in order to park up with the other guys. 

This was where I bogged the Pajero in the sand. The pic below shows me feverishly dropping tyre pressures to get out of the bog. Embarrassing as I was the only one to bog there.

 I dropped my tyre pressures to 18 psi and just drove out of the bog, but it was a lesson learned.

I then joined the others for the obligatory group shot.

The lower pressures helped me as we drove further down the beach and we soon enough reached the exit point which was basically the bottom of Callcup Hill near the Yeagerup dunes. Anyone from WA will aparently know this place, but it was new to me and, with a soft and silky sand track leading up to a peak maybe three times as high as Big Red in the Simpson Desert it was imposing. Our trip leader (a really gentlemanly guy called Doug) drove up it in his 200 Series without a problem, but the next guy (Jake in a well used and modified TD Rocky) needed a couple of goes and a big run up on the second go.

The third vehicle was a totally unmodified Triton ute which needed about twenty attempts and finally a change of driver to get up to the top. 

Then it was our turn. We gave it two attempts, but bogged down on both of them so i dropped our tyre pressures down to 10 psi and had a third attempt which was successful. it is amazing the difference it makes! 

The above pic is me starting the climb up - it is much steeper than it looks you know!

This pic is from very near to the top.

The view from the top was all worth it though and we then drove down the inland side and worked our way through the maze of tracks back to the home camp site where a beer was a welcome end to the day.

I can't thank Doug and the Foothills 4WD guys enough for the day out - just brilliant.

Easter Monday - The camp site emptied out as people went home and I watched Geelong get thrashed by Hawtorn on the TV in the pub. NOT a good day, but we'll survive.

Off to Bunbury tomorrow!