Australia day 74 – Kalbarri, WA

Posted on Friday, 29 May 2009 by Hattie

Kalbarri is a holiday seaside town about 70 km west of the Coastal Highway.  It is wonderfully positioned at the mouth of the Murchison River;  a rocky reef and sandstone cliffs protect the town beach and harbour from the huge waves come that roll in from the Indian Ocean.  The spray from these giant waves can be seen rising behind the reef as they collide over the treacherous entrance, making for a dramatic backdrop to this otherwise unassuming little town. 


 

Kilbarri is on the edge of the Kalbarri National Park and we spend a couple of hours in the park on our way into town.  The Murchison River and its tributaries cut unseen gashes through the gently undulating sand plain creating majestic striated gorges in pink, orange and crimson hues.  From the highway it is only a few kilometres detour to the main  is   climbing down into Ross Graham lookout and a pathway takes a gentle route down into Murchison River Gorge. At this time of the year the river is quite low and slow gently gurgling over the stony river bed.  Debris in the surrounding bushes and trees tells of a water level several metres higher in the rainy season.  Back at the lookout and with the aid of binos, black swans can be seen in the distance gliding across the  water down stream.   

 

Today is the start of a bank holiday weekend – Founder’s Day – so we are expecting the caravan parks to be busy with people travelling up from Perth.  But we have no problems booking into a site just off the beach front.  We spend the afternoon exploring the cliffs at Red Bluff and Mushroom Rock just outside town.  The lookout at Red Bluff gives splendid view of Kilbarri, the mouth of the Murchison River and the harbour beyond.  The coastal cliffs with sandy beaches and rock shelves at their base, are fringed with white surf and  huge waves meet over the submerged rocks at the harbour entrance crashing together to send spray  high up into the air leaving swathes of white surf in their wake.

 

The loop walk at Mushroom Rock climbs down from the cliff top and along the rock shelf where large waves crash over rok pools leaving carpets of white foam.  Here is the eponymous rock eroded into an uncanny likeness of a convex mushroom cap balancing on a delicate stem. 

 

Back at the car park we start chatting with an elderly Australian and his grandson up from Kalgoorlie for the fishing. We are soon joined by a Glaswegian and his English wife who have been living in Australia for 25 years or more.  This ‘short’ chat develops into a long conversation swapping travel stories and before we know it we’ve been standing the the car park for about an hour!  It seems to be the Australian way, to stop for a leisurely chat with complete strangers.

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Australia day 73 – Shark Bay to the Murchison River, WA

Posted on Thursday, 28 May 2009 by Hattie

Before we leave Shark Bay to drive south to Kalbarri we stop at Hamelin Pool, the easterly of the two main bays that make up the area that is known as Shark Bay and home to colonies of marine stromatolites..  This is a sublimely serene place; crystal clear water, not a breath of wind or a whisper of sound other than the crunching of our feet on the shells compacted into ridge formations along the foreshore.   Small cumulus and wispy clouds sitting on the horizon are reflected in the mirror like surface of the sea making it impossible to tell where the sea and sky meet.  The absence of the horizon combined with the stillness gives this place an dream-like, other-worldly quality – as though time stood still, which in another way it has.


 

A 47-mile sandbar spans the bay, controlling the influence of the tides and making this area one of the few places in the world where the conditions still exist to support colonies of stromatolites.  Single cell cyanobacteria which are similar to the earliest forms of life dating back 3.5bn years thrive in the highly saline waters of Hamelin Pool.  Microbes such as these played a crucial role in the evolutionary process by releasing oxygen from the oceans to create an atmosphere that could support life on land.  A boardwalk provides access to the three main stramatolite rock formations:  discs – remnants of earlier growths before the sea level receded, mats in the shallows and stacks in the deeper waters.  The water is so clear that it is almost invisible and the fish at weave their way around the stromatolites look as though they are gliding unsupported.

 

The old telegraph station built in 18884 is the focal point of the camp site which lies back from the beach.  Decommissioned as recently as the 1970s this was originally the connecting station between Perth and Roebourne further up the coast.  Now it is a rather charming, incongruous, shop selling clothes, knick knacks and souvenirs, visitors centre and tea rooms with some interesting old photographs adorning the walls. 

 

Onward to Kalbarri through mostly low-growing shrubland with the occasional tree here and there.  Until somewhere north of the Murchison River the landscape changes dramatically as we come upon an area of what must be the start of the wheat belt – and the rolling topography is covered in ploughed fields and stubble.

 

Tonight we are camping at the Galena Bridge Rest Area which straddles both sides of the Murchison River just off what must have been the original highway, now superseded by the National Coastal Highway and a newer and taller bridge.  This is a lovely spot just back from the wooded banks of the river.  It’s also very popular – there must be at least 20 vans of varying sizes from our little transit to huge caravans and Winibagos.  A chat with a man from Manchester travelling with an enormous Alsatian who, after 35 years in Australia, had managed to retain a thick Manchunian accent, delays dinner briefly.

 

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Australia day 72 – Denham, WA

Posted on Wednesday, 27 May 2009 by Hattie

We stayed at the caravan site in Denham again last night; the free camps just outside town are requires a permit which can’t be issued for consecutive nights.  So we are alternating between a paid for pitch in town and the free one’s down the coast. It’s not clear whether there is a commercial motive behind this restriction or simply a shortage of sites;  in fact tonight Eagles Bluff is full and we are allocated at site at Fowlers Camp a little further down the coast.  The weather seems to have recovered from the cold snap and the temperature hovers around 25 degrees when the sun is out but  it becomes quite cool at night.  Dark rain clouds are dropping rain further up the coast, but fortunately they are not heading this way.


 

We did some laundry this morning but didn’t have time to dry it before having to leave our pitch.  So we spend the morning on the edge of little lagoon just outside town.  To onlookers we must look like gypsies with our washing strung out across the sandy parking area!  Little Lagoon is an ancient barrida – a long-dried lake which has become flooded by the sea.  The undulating shrubland of Shark Bay is dotted with these dry, circular depressions from a long-ago age.  The lagoon is a pale blue fringed by a white sand beach.  In the afternoon we walk along the mangrove-lined creek that links the lagoon to the sea.  The tide is coming in creating the odd sight of its fast moving, crystal clear flowing away from the sea.  There is a narrow, deserted beach at  the mouth of the creek and we sit a while enjoying the gentle lapping of the waves and the sun on our skin.

 

Fowlers Camp turns out to be a picturesque campground on the edge of a very shallow and sheltered bay.  Mangroves grow in the shallows and a long sandbar is revealed at low tide.  In the late afternoon the fish are jumping and the quiet is broken by the occasional plop as they break the surface of the water.   Andy manages to catch one, but too small to keep.  This too, turns out to be a popular spot tonight, with several other vans parked up for the night. 

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Australia day 71 – Denham, Shark Bay, WA

Posted on Tuesday, 26 May 2009 by Hattie

A very early start this morning sees us up well before dawn and on our way to Monkey Mia about 50 km from our overnight camp at Eagles Bluff for the feeding of the wild dolphins. The dolphins have been coming to Monkey Mia every morning for their breakfast since the early sixties.  They come right up to the beach to be fed and this morning there are a pod of 11 – three generations  of three family groups the oldest being around 35 and the youngest five years old.  Now the whole spectacle is commercialised, contained and controlled by the rangers, unlike the days when people could come here for free and swim with the dolphins unfettered by rules and regulations.  All of which are, of course, in the interests of humans (who apparently have an uncanny knack of getting bitten when they put their fingers in dolphins mouths) and dolphins who were being harassed and fed the wrong diet and as a consequence weren’t looking after their young or foraging for themselves.  Nowadays, it costs $6 to enter the small resort area known as Monkey Mia and there is well-defined and regulated feeding ritual.  The dolphins arrival is heralded by two pelicans that know the drill and want a bit of the action.  At 7.30 am on cue the first of the dolphins arrive, soon to be followed by several more.  Over the next half-an-hour the ranger takes us through his patter about the history of Monkey Mia and some interesting facts about dolphins all the while the dolphins wait patiently, swimming up and down the shallows only a few feet from the expectant crowd.  At eight o’clock about half-a-dozen volunteers appear with buckets of fish, the small crowd step back out of the water and the feeding begins.  (In the meantime the pelicans being distracted by another volunteer who craftily has a decoy yellow bucket of fish at the back of the beach;  the pelicans wait patiently  for their feed unaware of this subtle deceit)  Selected members of the crowd are invited to hand feed the dolphins including Andy.  The feeding of the last fish is synchronised to prevent the oldest dolphin from stealing from the others.  The buckets are filled with water and emptied into the sea;  this signals to the dolphins tat the feed is over and immediately they head back out to sea.  Feeding time is over.  Until the dolphins decide to come back, which they do about 10 minutes later and the whole ritual begins again.  The dolphins are fed up to three times a day as long as they come back before midday and the amount of fish they are given is strictly controlled.  .An experience definitely worth making the 100 km detour to Shark Bay and much better than dolphin-watching from a boat.


 

We spend the rest of the day at Monkey Mia walking along the beach, sun bathing and fishing.  The weather is as good as a hot English summer’s day and this is a very pleasant place to spend it doing nothing much.

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Australia day 71 – Denham

Posted on Monday, 25 May 2009 by Hattie

It was a freezing cole night and we wake to find lots of cndensation on the inside of the van roof.  It’s remarkable how radically the weather has changed since we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn just south of Coral Bay.  There was a big storm around the Perth area last Thursday which brought power lines down and left 85,000 homes without electricity and it seems to have affected the weather system right up the coast.  We are hoping that it is a short cold snap and normal services will be resumed shortly!  But in the meantime we are taking no chances and have bought a couple of cheap fleece rugs-cum-blankets for extra warmth at night.


 

Despite the increasing cold at night, today is a gloriously sunny, although chilly,  start to the day, with clear blue skies.  A welcome change after several predominantly cloudy days.  It’s a good da for a bit of sight-seeing and Ocean Park Natural Marine Exhibition makes for an interesting stop a few kilometres outside Denham.  Here there are several types of live sharks in an open topped tank – tiger sharks, lemon sharks and reef sharks – along with two huge cod, which don’t get eaten by the sharks so long as the latter are fed regularly!  There are several other tanks with a variety of tropical and  temperate fish, shovel nose rays and sing rays, turtles, sea snakes, the incredibly well-camouflaged rock fish, snappers, crayfish emperors and much more. 

 

Further round the coast lies Shell Bay with it’s wonderfully white beach that has been created naturally from hundreds of millions (and more) Fragum cockles which grow in profusion in L’Haridon Bight and are washed up in the bay in such proliferation to create a 120km beach thought to be up to 4000 years old.  Compacted shell has been quarried for building blocks and used as building blocks although now only for renovation purposes.   Loose shells, not surprisingly as a renewable resource, ard continue to be mined commercial for paths and driveways

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Australia day 70 – Shark Bay, WA

Posted on Sunday, 24 May 2009 by Hattie

It’s a lovely walk along the beach at Eagles Bluff;  north as far as a small creek too deep to wade across and then south a kilometre or so until the boardwalk we visited yesterday comes into view.  There is absolutely no one else here and the beach is pristine.  Sheltered by sand dunes, it is perfectly calm, not even a ripple or a whisper of lapping waves.  We then head for Denham and a commercial caravan park to catch up on laundry and have a shower.  Denham is a charming little town with a population of 1140. It’s rather laid back main street fronts a calm ocean and the small jetty is popular with anglers who seem only to be able to reel in tiddlers too small to warrant gutting and filleting and in any case are outside the official bag limits.  We spend a quiet afternoon sitting on the jetty in the warm sunshine and at last Andy catches his first (edible) fish of the trip albeit too small to keep.


 

Denham is also the first town where we have seen emus walking down the main street – or any street for that matter.  Tourist literature as well as Lonely Planet tell of emus strolling around the streets of small towns, but these are the only ones we have seen outside Cape Range National Park.  The latter are timid and avoid human contact, whilst those in Denham seem unphased by people and traffic as they wander down the centre of the road.

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Australia day 69 – Carnarvon to Shark Bay, WA

Posted on Saturday, 23 May 2009 by Hattie

We leave Gladstone camping early .Rain is threatening and we have been warne that the 6km unsealed road to the highway becomes impassable, particularly for 2wds, after rain.We stop at a lookout a little further and have breakfast over-looking the ocean. The on to Shark Bay another couple of hours away.  Shark Bay is a World Heritage-listed site with a unique ecological system of stromatolites, sea grasses and a mix of tropical and temperate marine fauna hich make it the most diverse marine environment in Australia if not the world.  Located on the most western point of the continent and protected by two peninsulars, it covers a vast area of 25,000 sq km of prisine bays, lagoons, island and the largest natural harbour between Perth and Broome  Denham, the only town in the area, is a small holiday resort that attracts holiday-makers for a range of activities, from fishing and kayaking to 4wd tours, snorkelling and wildlife spotting… and of course the famous wild dolphins of Monkey Mia which come into shore every day to be fed.  There is an excellent boardwalk at Eagle Bluff on the way into town which affords a superb view of the coastline as well as the crystal clear azue and deep blue waters of the Indian Ocean below.  Apparently it is possible to see sharks and manta rays from the Bluff, but not today.


 

At another lookout further along the coast we get chatting to three girls travelling in a Wicked camper with the intention of doing the journey up to Darwin in 3 weeks.  Bearing in mind that we’ve already spent seven weeks on the road and have about another 800 km, they are going to have their work cut out particularly if they want to stop and see anything!

 

There is some limited free camping just off the coast road as it approaches Denham, for which a permit is necessary and then it is only possible to camp for one night.  So we phone ahead and obtain the permit and find spot just above the dunes with a stunning view of several kilometres of coastline.

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Australia day 68 – Carnarvon, WA

Posted on Friday, 22 May 2009 by Hattie

The camp ground at New Beach is a bit bleak even in the morning sunlight  and the high tide come  right up to the edge of the camping area – just as well we parked well back otherwise we could have woken to find ourselves stepping out into the sea!   The weather has turned much cooler since we arrived in Carnarvon and the night’s are very chilly; so much so that we have had to take to wearing clothes in bed to keep warm!   It takes several hours after dawn for the ambient temperature to become warm enough to warrant shedding fleeces.  Today the weather is overcast, windy with intermittent showers.  It could be an English summer’s day!  We are beginning to rue having left Coral Bay and warmer climes.  We are debating whether to retrace our steps back north as originally planned in the hope of better weather or continue to head south to Shark Bay and Monkey Mia.  On balance we come to the decision to continue south since we want to see the dophins at Monkey Mia . 


 

Today is Daniel’s 20th birthday, so we are staying in Carnarvon in order to be able to skype him from the local internet cafe. The seven hour time difference means that calling at 3pm wakes Dan at the’ ungodly’ hour of 8am UK time to wish him Happy Birthday.  But he takes it rather stoically. We rough camp Gladstone camping area two hours south just off the coastal highway, 20km south of Wooramel Road House.  This stretch of coastline has several camping bays, a couple of a pit toilets and few campers.

 

 

 

 

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Australia day 67 – Carnarvon, WA

Posted on Thursday, 21 May 2009 by Hattie

Our priority today is to get our Indian visa applications into the post.  It takes ten working days to process an application and we want to be able to pick the visas up in Perth before we take the van  back on 10th June.  Submitting the applications with a few extra days to spare will hopefully ensure we get our passports back before we leave for Bali on 13th June! 


 

The camp ground at Quobba Point is in a gorgeous stop, but the wind makes the sea rather inhospitable.  Huge waves, probably the largest we have seen, are breaking a long way off the beach and rolling in making swimming impossible.  We pack up intending to go into the Carnarvon chemist before the computer ‘whizz’ goes for his lunch at 11.30, but we get chatting to an Aussie parked next to us and then to an English woman and here Australian travelling companion and before we know it an hour has passed and we still haven’t washed or packed anything away!  On the way we stop  at a sheltered lagoon at the other end of the camping area (which stretches  for at least a kilometre along the coastal sand dunes) for a walk along the beach.  This is a perfect spot for snorkelling and sunbathing;  a sheltered sandy beach protected from the huge waves breaking only a couple of hundred yards out to sea by an island reef.  We stop again at the blow holes to watch another fascinating display of nature’s power and bump into the English woman again who, it turns out is from High Wycombe, and another half-an-hour conversation ensues.  

 

Eventually we manage to tear ourselves away and head to town arriving around 2pm  The man in the chemist turns out to be unbelievably helpful;  spending at least half-an-hour working through our photo requirements, consulting the Indian website, taking our photos and manipulating the size and finally trimming the photos to the required dimensions.  For customer service he ranks up there with our experience in the opticians on Koh Samui.  It’s impossible to imagine anyone going to such lenghts in the UK – and only charging £3.80 (£2)!

 

After a late lunch, we compete the visa forms and head to the Post Office.  By this time it’s 4.45 and the post office closes at 5. We need a money order for the fees, a registered envelope and some glue to affix the pictures.  In addition, we must find the telephone number of Andy’s sister in Bomaderry to add to the form as our referee.  It’s becoming a bit of a close call, and no-one in the Post Office seems sure of the number for directory enquiries.  At 5pm Andy’s still in the call box over the  road phoning directory enquiries while I’m in the Post Office, pen poised to add the phone number.  The post is collected 10 minutes after the Post Office closes and the counter clerk waiting to lock up.   At last we have the number and hastily complete the form, collate all the various items into the envelope just in time for the post!  Imagine that happening in the UK?  Not a chance!!  I’ve been turned away /from the Post Office on the stroke of closing even when they are still serving customers inside.

 

We spend the night at New Beach about 30km kilometres south of Carnarvon;  another bit of desolate coastline, flat and scrubby with the sea several hundred yards out from the camp ground.  We arrive in the dark and find that most of the pitches are too sandy to drive onto safely.  There are a few other campers spread across this huge site and we finally park up next to another 2wd who probably aren’t best pleased to have such close neighbours.. 

 

We have become quite adept at setting up kitchen.  There are no cooking facilities in the van itself and the only equipment provided by Wicked is a single ring gas burner, a cool box, some grubby plastic crockery, knives and forks, a pan and and frying pan you wouldn’t cook the dog’s dinner in.  At the outset we invested in another camping stove, a frying pan and other bits and pieces as well as storage boxes for food.  But our kitchen table is improvised using a couple of folding camp stools as legs and one of the boards from bed base in the back of the van.  It works surprisingly well and

 

tonight all is set up and I’ve just started to cook when suddenly the wind changes direction and it starts to rain.  We quickly pack everything away and scramble in the van before it starts to pour.  This is our first wash-out and puts paid to any possibility of cooking an meal tonight.  Instead we huddle round our little internal table and make do with sandwiches followed by peaches and yoghurt!!  Ah, the joys of camping!

 

 

 

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Australia day 66 – Coral Bay to Carnarvon

Posted on Wednesday, 20 May 2009 by Hattie

We stopped last night in a large rest area just off the coastal highway which backs onto the Lyndon River.  This morning we notice a 4wd which appears to be stuck in the river bed.  It turns out that three French people decided to take a short cut off the site by crossing the salt flats of the dry river bed, only to find soft clay under the salt crust.  There is not much we can do to help them, but Andy suggests that letting some air out of the tyres might help traction.  They’re not having any of that, after all they have to drive on the road afterwards!  They seem to have little idea about 4wds and don’t seem to know whether they have 4wd engaged.  But given that only one wheel is spinning, probably not.  Nor do they have a tow rope, and neither does a 4wd that stops to assist.  They  manage to flag down another 4wd and we leave them scratching their heads over what seems to be a pretty tricky situation.


 

Verdant Carnarvon is a pleasant and attractive town at the mouth of the Gascoyne River.  A little oasis of  fruit and vegetable farms in the otherwise flat and dry Gascoyne region.  Banana plantations are much in evidence on the way into town.  Fishing is also an important industry here.  Large enough to warrant a local bus service, it has a small shopping mall and a few shops and cafes along the main street as well as the usual amenities:  Post Office, library and visitors centre.  Robinson Street which runs through the shopping area has palm and eucalypt-shaded parking down the centre and palms line the small harbour which is home to a few boats including a yacht and a catamaran.  Palms also line Memorial Avenue, a long road stretching between town and the coastal highway, each with a plaque dedicated to those who lost their lives on HMS Sydney II.

 

It’s windy and, like most of the town we have been through, very quiet.  Our first port of call is the visitors centre to find out where we can get the photos for our Indian visa applications.  Thus starts  what turns out to be a rather prolonged saga..  We’re directed to the Post Office which does photos for passports.  It’s not a booth but an arrangement similar to that used for taking security photos for company passes and at airports.  But this facility produces photos to meet the requirements of the Australian passport office and can’t accommodate the rather unusual specifications set by the Indian embassy.  The Post Office counter clerk sends us the the local chemist, who apparently is a bit of a whizz on the computer and might be able to manipulate our photos to the correct dimensions.  By this time we have established that there isn’t a photographer in Carnarvon.  The man at the chemist is on a day off, but the sales assistant is very helpful and if we can return tomorrow before 3.30pm she will let him know we are coming.  At this point we’re not very confident that this is leading anywhere, but hey we’re here and we might as well exhaust all possibilities.

 

We camp at Quobba Point a 70km drive to the north of Carnarvon where there is a number of shacks and a camping area behind the sand dunes.  Its very windy and the sea is rough and dramatic.  It’s the kind of spot that attracts the grey nomads and Australian families who have taken time out to travel.  A pitch costs $5.50 a night and the only facilities is a pit toilet.  For everything else campers need to be self sufficient, including bringing water supplies.  Many have generators or solar panels and even satellite dishes as well as solar showers. 

 

On the way we stop to watch the blow holes which shoot fountains of spray probably 20 feet into the air.  The swell of the ocean give  rise to huge waves which crashing against the cliffs along this stretch of desolate, windswept coast sending spray soaring into the air.  The sheer raw power of the ocean is mesmerising.  This is a dangerous spot and signs warn ‘King waves kill’  while a plaque commemorates at least one person swept away by the waves.

 

Today we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn.  A sign marks the spot on the road between Coral Bay and Carnarvon.

 

 

 

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