WA - The Great South (Denmark)

Well, I have said that I love WA before, but this place is the best of the best. Denmark is truly a wonderful place to be.

We arrived and (Easter cramping our free camping style) ended up booking a spot in a huge Big 4 caravan park. As expected, we are slotted into a small spot with a concrete slab and lots of all too close neighbours, but it is actually OK.

The park is at the end of Ocean Beach Drive and we are right on the ocean side of things.

Denmark is a great little place and it reminds us so very much of the way Byron Bay used to feel some decades ago. There are the usual new age faith healers, incense and tatty jewellery vendors but the heart of the place is a lovely small town ethic of just being nice to people and doing it in a beautiful location.

We took a walk down along the river (love the "Beware of the snakes" signs) which took us through some dense forest and then open out onto heathland on one side and housing on the other, before crossing the river (yep, they even have bridges here!) and walking back to town on the other bank.

A beer at the very friendly and comfortable local pub topped off the day. 

What a great place this is.

So, on our first whole day here we thought we'd drive out and see the tall trees that are so famous around here. So we headed straight for the aptly named Valley of the Giants. This is a Nat Park where a stand of the giant Tingle Trees ("Tingle" being a corruption of an aboriginal word that meant either red or medicine) is preserved. 

We spent a little time with one of the rangers who gave us a tour of the forest and introduced us to some of their most famous trees including Grandma Tingle and talked about how the trees survive the fires. It seems that their bark is fire resistant but the inner heart of the tree is not so many trees have large hollow sections where the heartwood has been burned out, but the tree survives anyway.

The Tingle Forest (above) is a beautiful place and is home to a number of small marsupials including quokkas which we thought were only fund on Rottnest Island. Looking like rather large rats they are not very prepossessing things, but cute enough.

The pic above shows a tingle tree that has had its interior (well, the bottom of it) burned out, but the tree survives anyway!

There is a treetop walk too which is pretty cool to walk around something like 50 metres up in the air. The walkway sways around which puts some people off, but we had fun.

The obligatory selfie!

And the view from the top! 

We left there, after lunch, and drove on to see the Giant Tingle - this is the largest eucalypt in the world and despite its base being almost burned out it is still alive and is a huge tree.

Now that is a big tree!

Back to the campsite via the pub - naturally.

The next day was Sunday so we went out for a walk along the banks of the river, meeting people doing the same thing and marvelling at how beautiful it all was. As we had partaken of a large cooked brekky we skipped lunch and went off to check out Greens Pool - this was featured in a number of the tourist blather you see and it seemed to be a nice place. Well, when we got there we found that it was just a stunning place and it was so pretty (and the weather was so nice) that for a change, we had to share the place with other people. The pool is actually just a lagoon that is protected by a reef of granite rocks (the waves crash over them so dramatically) and floored by white sand so it is all a brilliant turquoise and very safe to swim in.

The pics above and below show the pool itself together with the crowds we had to share it with.

Well, there were another couple of people around just out of camera shot, but you get the idea.

Yep - Karen just HAD to go paddling!

We sat for a while, just contemplating the beauty of the place when we spotted these crabs venturing out from under a rock slab. Cute little jiggers eh?

Elephant rocks - you can see where they got the name.

The pics below show the inlet itself and you wouldn't find a prettier and more peaceful place anywhere in the world. 

The view below is the one that we had as we walked back to the car.

The photos do not do it justice, but take my word for it - it is heaven on earth.

Right next to this pool, well just across a headland, is the Elephant Rocks pool. Smaller than Greens it is just as picturesque and to the west side of the pool are some large granite outcrops that look very much like elephants. Well they do if you squint a little! 

We needed to take a little time to absorb the beauty of this place so we ended up retiring to the pub (a different one) to contemplate just how lucky we are to experience this. 

On the way back we also picked up some cheap veggies from one of the organic farmers' farm gates. Great food and a great price too.

What do you do the next day after such experiences? Yep, you head off again in search of something else. This time we wandered around the farming areas, picking up a bargain or two in the way of tasty organic veggies and calling in at a winery and cheese factory where we tried out a few tasty things and bought cheese, pate, fudge, ice cream and wine enough to keep us happy for quite a while. The coffee and cake there were bloody good too. 

We drove on to Mt Lindesay Nat Park where we had a walk through the park, checking out the bottlebrushes and grass trees etc and walked off the food we had eaten. I can't say that this nat park had us absolutely smitten, but it was pleasant enough.

I think we may be checking out the real estate around here soon. It is that good.

WA - The Great South (Albany)

Having left the comfortable surroundings of Bremer Bay and taken away thoughts of perhaps returning there to live (only the wind would be an issue), we tooled off towards Albany, but we decided to spend the night at a place called Norman's Beach.

This is a free camp place (found through the good offices of WikiCamps on my phone) and it has turned out to be a superb choice. The small camping area is sheltered and is right on the shores of the calm and pretty inlet while there is a walkway (albeit with a lot of steep stairs) to the beach which is another one of these WA beaches of white sand and blue, blue water. This one has some serious surf pounding it, but it is just glorious and we have to share it with nobody else. 

Heavenly!

It took us about 90 minutes driving to get here so we have had plenty of time to explore and check things out before we head on to Albany tomorrow.

This is the view you get of the bar across the inlet at Norman's Beach. The high tide just gets over it, but a good king tide should wash it away some time.

 

This is looking up the beach to some shacks at the far end.

After descending the stairs we walked along the beach, taking the time to rest on some smoothed rocks that were poking out of the sand.

Albany - well, this is a beauty of a town. Population about 30,000 and we were (at first) a little surprised at having to share road space with other traffic, but we got used to it quickly enough and started to enjoy what it had to offer.

We spent a little time exploring the town and the bayside area, eventually finding out way into a beauty of a pub or wine bar called the Great South. They have Sierra Nevada beers on tap here as well as some very fine local wines so we stopped for a chat and to spend some time just gazing out at the harbour.

The next day we decided to head off to the Torndirrup NP and to have a wander through there. Like most WA parks, it is well maintained and has some lovely parts to see. Sadly the road to Natural Bridge was closed for repair so we missed out on that one, but we caught a few other spots.

One of the other spots was the Blowholes. Unfortunately, they weren't actually blowing the sheets of water that they can do when it is a large swell out on the ocean, but we could hear it breathing (sounds like a whale, but even louder) and every now and then we were treated to a couple of plumes of spray jetting up.

These are the actual blowholes themselves.

On our way back we drove up to the National ANZAC Memorial Centre. As all of the first couple of convoys of soldiers in 1914 had their last sight of Australia at Albany it was an appropriate place to build it.

It is quite an emotional place to visit though.

We went back the next day to visit the centre itself and walk around the place and we were treated to a saddening experience, but a beautiful day.

On Thursday we thought we'd take a drive down to West Cape Howe NP as this holds the southern most point of WA and I like the idea of visiting all these points.

As you can see, it is a lovely coastal view with some great beaches.

The beach below is easy to access and some enterprising young bloke has a coffee van down there. We bought a couple of coffees to go with our sandwiches and sat in the shade of some huge gum trees, just watching the ocean. 

We left there and continued on down to the southern most point and this pic is of the beach near there. You can see the car park and some people fishing on the beach - just beautiful. 

Below is the point itself.

The road in, and out, runs through an area of old forest that majors in karri trees.

That was the last thing we did at Albany though - the next day we were off to Denmark to check out their tall trees etc.

WA - The Great South (Bremer Bay)

We didn't want to drive very far from Esperance so we covered about 80 klms to get us to the Stokes NP where we camped in the NP campground at Stokes Inlet

Lovely park with individual sites for people separated by trees and quite a reasonable distance. No power or water of course, but clean toilets and bins etc that made it a pleasure to stay there, along with the incredibly friendly and helpful camp hosts.

The first afternoon we took the 2.5 klm (each way) walk to the Inlet itself. A pleasant walk that went up across the escarpment top and allowed us to surprise a couple of 'roos along the way. We were glad that the weather has cooled off somewhat, but with sun beaming down and the track being built from decomposed white limestone we worked up a sweat anyway.

That afternoon I left Karen with her book and I drove back to the inlet with my fishing rod in hand. The only bait I had was a slice or two of bread, but I thought I would give it a go. The bread only attracted tiny fish, but as I have half of our food supplies in the car fridge/freezer I thought I'd have a look to see what I could find.

Hmmm - lamb stir fry strips. I wonder . . . . . .  Well, that was the key and (once defrosted) I was pulling in black bream virtually every cast. Only one was of a size worth taking, but I released it anyway. It was a lovely afternoon and the fact that I had to take a 4WD track out to the sand bar across the inlet to go fishing made it even more fun. It seems I have to do most of the 4WD stints alone as Karen gets all worried about damaging the (new) car and her constant worried words take all the fun out of it. 

Perhaps one day when the car is a bit older.

That late afternoon we had a storm blow through that dropped a huge amount of water in just a few seconds. In fact, the water that was dropped on the awning didn't even have time to drain off before we were looking at a completely collapsing awning. I ended up standing outside, holding the awning up myself so it wouldn't rip off the side of the 'van.

I love a sunburned country, but we certainly had a drop of the flooding rains that evening!

Oddly enough, we didn't take any photos that day, so nothing to show for it.

We drove on from the NP and headed towards Raventhorpe, calling into Fitzy's Bush Camp for a night. What a jewel of a place this is - a new venture run by some very friendly people who charge very little for a lovely place to stay.  They even have a resident emu (Milo) who struts about the place looking for someone to cadge food from.  

They have some expansion plans for the future and want to add a licensed bar to the lovely little BBQ spot. This turned out to be  place where we retreated to get away from the wind and where we met out neighbours - two caravans. 

One couple, Tom and Georgie were particularly engaging and may turn out to be long term friends once we finish travelling. We'll see, but we'll definitely keep in touch.

No photos of this place either!

On the afternoon we arrived there we decided to take a trip down into Hopetoun and see what that place looks like. A lovely little town and we checked out the port area and then (shock, horror) the Port Hotel where we had a pleasant little drink and checked out their collection of shark jaws and pictures of sharks that had been caught and landed there. Some of them were huge!

(pic of the pub from phone to be inserted)

After a pleasant night at Fitzy's we headed off to spend some time in the Fitzgerald NP and we drove  to the Hamersley Inlet camp site. 

This cost us just $10 per night, and the facilities were pretty damned good. All new and clean and working smoothly. 

We took a walk to the inlet itself and promised ourselves that we'd do the major walk across to the surf beach and along that to some rocky areas that sounded interesting, but before we went back for the night we thought we'd take a drive to Cave Point where we took in the view and watched a pod of dolphins with some of them (the young ones) leaping completely clear of the water. I love watching dolphins play like that!

These are the views when you first enter the NP.

As you walk out to Cave Point you get the following little bay on your right

Cave Point, so called because there is a cave right underneath the viewing platform, provides a stunning vista of coastline and the endless southern ocean.

We continued on to Miley's Beach and found that access to it was through a channel that the sea must sometimes flood. We ended up on a deserted beach with the wind in our hair and sun on our faces. 

Magic.

Once we returned to the camp site we found Tom and Georgie looking for a spot to stay as well and they pulled in next to us. It was a pleasant evening's conversation. What a shame they are heading east while we go west.

The next morning we found it was raining steadily so we abandoned our walk to the surf beach and  decided to leave. Tom and Georgie had left somewhat earlier than us so we trundled back towards Hopetoun where we stopped by to wash the van and then have a coffee. 

We kept meeting people that we had met along the road here. Strange that they all decided to call in to Hopetoun at the same time!

Anyway, we headed west and back into that strong Westerly breeze and aimed our bonnet at Bremer Bay where we stopped in a van park that was full of Peppermint trees, but which seemed a comfortable place. 

It only takes one look at the town to realise that fishing is the go here. Everything is focused on the angler, but that's OK if you like it and we do.  The only other thing of note is the Bremer Bay Resort which is the town's pub. We decided to have dinner there and we both had a burger with a decent WA chardonnay (for Kazza) and a Fat Yak pale ale for me.

Next day we went to explore the peninsula and check out the beaches and boy are they pretty.

Bremer Bay is so pretty we decided to hang around for a little longer than the two nights we had originally thought we'd do. There is quite a lot to do and see here.

So, on day three we reckoned we had done enough touring around and, despite there being lots to do, we had a quiet day instead with only visits to the museum and the pub to break things up.

One of the things for sale at the museum was a selection of home made conserves including one made (obviously) just for me!



On day 4 here we aimed the Pajero at the western end of the Fitzgerald NP and headed in - what a disaster of a road! The corrugations were shaking the car to pieces and when I looked across at Karen she was bouncing in the seat and almost hitting the roof.

There were some compensations in the form of groves of these weird plants:


We persisted, but instead of getting better they got worse.

So we checked the map and found a 4WD track that would take us out of the place and avoid the drive back on those awful corrugations. This track was rough and, at times, tough, but nothing the Pajero couldn't handle so despite the deep mud filled ruts and water crossings we drove on through and found ourselves at the eastern end of the sand bar that blocks the Bremer Bay inlet.

I was worried about this as the sand in the area is talcum powder fine and I expected to be digging and using the Maxtrax to get across, but it turned out to be hard packed sand (whiter than white) that was so solid under the wheels we barely left a track.

Home to the van and happy, but it was a muddy Pajero we parked on the grass.

Day 5 and we had a lie in. Once we managed to get vertical and breakfasted we thought wed do a little fishing down at the boat ramp.

Fishing there was turning up lots of fish, but they were all tiddlers like this one and I was just throwing them all back.

Then Karen spotted a shoal of small fish all leaping out of the water so I dropped the paternoster rig and tied on a barra lure. I chucked it out and it was hit immediately by an Australian salmon. Of course, as I was using just three kilo line it tugged for a few seconds and then bit through it and ran off with my lure.

I changed reels for one with stronger line and tied on a popper (surface lure) and flicked it out and there were immediately a number of salmon chasing it and one bit it and took off.

The reel was screaming and I then lifted and wound to get the line back.

Eventually, after about a ten minute fight with the fish leaping out of the water and going on strong runs, I pulled it onto the deck. About 80cm in length it was a good fish.

We filleted it on the spot (well, some kind young bloke offered to do it for me so I accepted) and it is going to be dinner.

I know that these fish are not prized table fish, but we'll give it a go.