Tag Archives: Australia

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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Australia day 65 – Coral Bay, WA

Posted on Tuesday, 19 May 2009 by Hattie

On closer inspection and despite it’s obvious commercialisation, Coral Bay is a stunningly beautiful bay.  Forget the caravan parks, the numerous tour operators offering dive trips, snorkelling trips to the reef, swimming with whale sharks, manta rays etc, etc.  Instead imagine a well-retouched picture postcard of the archetypical tropical beach;   a few palm trees, soft white sand, a curving bay and three distinct bands of blue sea – milky blue in the long shallows, vivid turquoise as the shallows begin to fall away quite suddenly and then deep blue beyond.  Magical!  There are not as many fish to see here as further up the coast, but the corals just offshore are far more diverse;  a fascinating world of dramatically beautiful shapes and colours.  Shoals of large fish (Emperors, we think) swimming just off the shallows are not the least bothered by us.  Later in the afternoon there is is a feeding session for the wild Blue Spangled Emperors that come into the shallows.  These large fish, their bodies breaking the surface of the water, so shallow is it, swim in and out and round the legs of the crowd that congregates to watch and admire these beautiful creatures.


 

We investigate the tours offering trips to swim with whale sharks.  Here the tours are $395 pp with no guarantee that the boats will find the whale sharks.  In fact, there apparently haven’t been any sightings for the last three days.  The only compensation if there is no sighting is a second trip.  After that its just bye bye money.  It seems a high risk proposition and we give some consideration to a trip to swim with manta rays.  The biggest rays in the ocean they inhabit the surrounding waters in abundance sightings are more or less guaranteed.  A better bet at $165 each. 

 

A further call to the Indian Visa Office confirms that we can submit an application by post.  The call to Perth to obtain that piece of information costs $10 (£5) on a premium rate number!  But we are armed with details of how to download the forms and that costs another $8.50 at the internet cafe.  The cost of this visa lark is beginning to add up and we haven’t even got to the point of applying yet!  The biggest stumbling block to making our application, turns out to be the obtaining suitable photographs.  The passport photos we have with us don’t conform to the very precise and rather unconventional requirements of the Indian Visa Office.  For a start they must be 2 inches square.  They must also be shot against a coloured background and the face must be a specific depth and the eyes must be in a certain position in relation to the bottom of the photo.  We either have to go to the Visa Office in Perth where they have the facilities to produce such photos or we can try the nearest town, Carnarvon 150 km further south.  We opt for the latter although without much hope of success.. So tomorrow we will be leaving Coral Bay rather sooner than we had intended  putting paid to any thoughts we may have had about swimming with whale sharks or manta rays..

 

The southern night sky viewed in the bush away from the spoiling effects of light pollution is the most indescribably beautiful and awesome sight.  The night sky in the northern hemisphere just doesn’t stand comparison. The milky way cuts a huge swathe across the sky;  a hazy canopy of million (if not trillions) of indistinguishable stars form a backdrop for a huge display of brighter, glittering stars.  The sky bursts with light even though there is no moon   An incredibly wondrous a spectacle. 

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Australia day 64 – Cape Range Ntional Park to Coral Bay, WA

Posted on Monday, 18 May 2009 by Hattie

We  are sad to leave Cape Range National Park and our little camp at Lakeside.  The unspoilt, uncrowded beauty and laid-back lazy days are going to be hard to replicate.  We wonder, too, how long it will be before this idylic spot will remain undeveloped and commercialised.   Apperently there is already talk of setting up a large ‘holding’ camp at the entrance to the park to manage the entry of  increasing numbers of people coming here. 


 

It’s about 40 kilometres up and round the coast to Exmouth on the east of the peninsular, where we spend most of the morning stocking up on supplies, catching up on emails – we haven’t logged on for five days – and contacting the Indian embassy about visa arrangements. 10 working days are required to process an application from a non-resident of Australia, which mayput paid to our plans to spend the next three weeks making our way down to Perth;  wee may have to fast forward our arrive in Perth in order to lodge our application at the consulate there.  But, first we are going to investigate the possibility of applying by post and picking up the visas just before we fly out.

 

It takes a couple of hours to do the drive from Exmouth to Coral Bay.  Coral Bay is described by Lonely Planet as a samll beachcomber village;  but initial impressions are more of a very large caravan park.  There are two caravan parks an a small shopping centre which seem to make up the entire community.  So a little more commercialised and certainly a lot busier than we had anticipated.  And expensive.  A powered pitch is $33 , but tonight we are treating ourselves so that we can power up all our electrical gadgetry, have showers and do our laundry! It’s been five days since we have been able to do that!  Although at Lakeside we were lucky enough to be camped next to a family who had a generator and were kind enough to charge one of our laptops everyday.  Essential in order to keep up to date with the blogging.

 

 

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Australia day 63 – Cape Range National Park, WA

Posted on Sunday, 17 May 2009 by Hattie

The weather is glorious today and we spend most of it at Lakeside simply relaxing – this life is so hard!  All we have to worry about is getting some more ice and topping up on the water supplies.  That takes us to lunch-time.  We spent the afternoon on the beach sunbathing and doing some snorkeling.  There are hundreds of Red Bell Jellyfish in the sea by the campsite, bobbing in the waves, the unlucky ones being washed up on the sand.  Fortunately, it’s a localized influx carried in on a warm current at the tide came in.  Further round the shore in the protected zone there are only one or two – easy to avoid and apparently their stings are not much worse than that of nettles.  The snorkeling is just as good as yesterday and we come across a shoal of black fish amongst them some parrot fish and we stay with them a while.  There’s a huge Manta Ray too, must be at least 6ft from head to tip of the tail, just resting on the sand. 

The National Park operates a hosting system at each of the camping grounds.  The hosts are volunteers who  live on the site and supervise the coming and goings of the campers and visitors.  Our hosts are Greg and Marg.  Originally from South Africa, they settled in Australia some years ago and seem to spend a lot of their time travelling around the country.  One of a band of ‘grey nomads’ that seem to be permanently on the road.  They host the site during the peak season, liaising with the ranger , looking after the site and it’s facilities (such as they are) and making sure that there is no illegal camping.  All of which means that the site runs smoothly;  no-one comes and steals your site when you’re out for the day, or camps in the day parking area – which apparently several people have tried to do arguing with the hosts (as if they wouldn’t know) that it’s free to camp overnight in the day parking area, as opposed to the official sites for which a fee is payable.   But the whole system within the park still depends on people’s honesty, since it would be easy enough to come into the park at night and camp at one of the beaches out of sight of the road.  In fact, people camp illegally in the visitors centre car park.

Light has been shed on the large numbers of children who are out of school during term-time.  Apparently taking children out of school is as simple as writing a sick note.  One of the mothers here explained that all she needed to do was write a note to school the day before she intended taking them out to say that her children would not be in school for the next 13-week term!   This is quite commonplace apparently and for children out of school for more than three months there are official correspondence courses which are posted out to parents and and a postal homework marking system.  similarly.   Unimaginable in the UK where you have to jump through hoops to be allowed to educate your children at home!

We walk along the beach about a kilometre or so to a perfectly still bay and sit on the sand dunes to watch the sunset.  The sun sinks below the horizon incredibly quickly;  from the moment it touches the horizon to it sinking out of sight takes just 2 minutes and 19 seconds.  The sunsets here produce a deep orange skyline, but there is no after glow, no after sunset development through a range of colours as in Darwin or Broome.   Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

 

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Australia day 62 – Cape Range National Park, WA

Posted on Saturday, 16 May 2009 by Hattie

A sunny, blue sky greets us this morning!  A day of snorkeling awaits.  Turquoise Bay is reputedly the best snorkeling area in the park and it certainly lives up to its name;  the water is oh so beautifully turquoise blue and the sand oh so white.  And, as befits the best, it attracts a host of people including groups on commercial trips!   Coral only a few metres out from the beach is home to myriad colourful fish!  All the colours of the rainbow are represented in this tropical fish tank, vivid greens, electric blue, vibrant yellows, pinks and reds.   Fish with beautiful patterns, dots and stripes, if only we could identify them all!  Now, under the shimmering sun,  the sublime beauty of Ningaloo Reef, this well-kept secret of
Western Australia, really comes into its own!  So accessible – and teeming with life – forget the Great Barrier Reef, with its expensive tours, commercialization and, in our experience, disappointing reef  – for sheer natural beauty this has got to be hard to beat.

Oyster Stacks is another excellent snorkeling site just a little further along the coast.  It’s rocky makes it a bit more difficult to get into the water , but there is a tidal current to carry you effortlessly over the coral  and when you’ve drifted far enough you can out on the sandy beach further along and walk back.  If anything, there is a more and greater variety of fish at this spot than Turquoise Bay, but the water isn’t quite so picturesquely turquoise blue. 

We plan to finish off the day with a bit more snorkeling at Lakeside, but by the time we get back the tide is out and the wind up making it a bit too choppy and shallow.  We will try again tomorrow.  As we stroll along the beach in the evening light we stop to chat with our host, Marg, who is on her way back to camp.  She has hurriedly retreated from the water after coming face to face with a Tiger shark, which whilst not supposed to be aggressive can be just a little intimidating when you are swimming on your own! 

Now is the season for Whale Sharks, which are the largest fish in the world.  For those with $350 to (175 pounds) to spare it is possible to take a trip from Exmouth to swim with these enormous, but harmless creatures.  It is an amazing experience, according to everyone we have spoken to.  Tempting!    

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Australia day 61 – Cape Range National Park

Posted on Friday, 15 May 2009 by Hattie

It’s another disappointingly cloudy and windy day, but it is so relaxing here and the scenery so wild and unspoilt that we have booked in for another night in the hope that the weather will improve eventually.  The sea is choppy, and snorkeling is still off the agenda, so we drive out of the park to get some supplies and fill up on petrol before spending the day exploring the beaches along the coast, all of which have a slightly different character;  some rugged and rocky with crashing waves, others sandy stretches attracting those who want to fish (although no-one seems to be catching anything).  Jurabi Turtle Centre turns out to be nothing more than a set of information boards and we don’t see any turtles, but then we’re not really looking because, according to the boards, they are not coming into nest at this time of year.  It’s not until we chat with some people further down the coast that we discover that there are turtles in the lagoon and if you look carefully enough it’s possible to see the occasional turtle’s head pop up out of the water followed by its body.  But you need to be keen sighted.  At the Jurabi Coastal Reserve we scale an enormous mountain of a sand dune which is surprisingly solid and firm on the top and offers a splendid panorama of the coast and the
Cape Range behind.    Mangrove Bay is different again;  edged with mangroves this secluded bay is completely calm in stark contrast to the rest of the coast.  The mangroves attract many migrating bird species from as far away as Siberia and Asia – in the summer months- so nothing to see today! 

Last stop of the afternoon is Neds Camp – a boating and fishing spot with a secluded campsite.  Here we spot a couple of turtle’s heads popping up to the surface.  More emu and Roo sightings along the road.   Emus, interestingly, are considered a pest especially by farmers.  Apparently they migrate from the centre to converge on Western Australia in their thousands, finding gaps in the rabbit proof fence, and ravage farmland eating all the crops.  The farmers answer?  Shoot the blighters.

There is only one water tap in the National Park providing a limited supply of bore water.  We are not sure how limited or indeed if it is drinking water.  There is no sign indicating it isn’t, but then again there is nothing to say it is,  so we are erring on the side of caution and using the water for washing only.  We are drawing on our fresh water supplies for drinking.  At the water point there are several pretty pink and grey galahs perched in the bushes seemingly unconcerned by our arrival.  In fact our presence seems to be the cue for the arrival of a large flock;  perhaps they are expecting to be fed or to take advantage of any water spillage.   

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