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Tag Archives: Western Australia
Australia day 60 – Cape Range National Park, WA
A cloudy day! The temperature has dropped quite significantly but it is still warm. Unlike yesterday which was sunny by afternoon, the sun doesn’t manage to break through and the wide doesn’t drop until late afternoon. It’s perfect weather, though, for a walk through Mandu Mandu Gorge 14km along the coastal road. Another walk classed as moderately difficult, the two-hour trail winds its’s way along the rocky, white creek bed deep into this sheer sided gorge. A steep scramble leads up onto the gorge rim and more superb views of the coast, the surrounding country as well as down into the gorge itself. The return along the top involves more scrambles up and down several smaller tributary valleys cut deep into the hills. It’s on these sort of walks that we are glad of the cloud cover to provide protection from the glare of the sun.
On the drive back to camp we take a look at
Sandy Bay – a curved stretch of white sand- and Pilgramunna – a rocky little cove popular with the boating fraternity. At Pilgrammunna we get stuck in the sand, which looked quite firm but turns out to be deceptively soft and we need a push to get free.
Back at Lakeside for lunch and then a spot of fishing while I blog a while. Until Andy comes rushing back from the beach to report a pod of dolphins just a few metres off shore. This sends people rushing to the waters edge to get a glimpse of themas they arc gracefully through the water for a few minutes before disappearing out to sea. By mid afternoon the wind has dropped and the water is wonderfully calm and crystal clear. Time for a spot of snorkeling. The water is a bit chillier than the 30 degrees we are used to, so we don’t stay in long, but we do see some colorful parrot fish, a manta ray and several tiny electric blue fish. Red Bell Jellyfish are around in these waters so it’s necessary to keep an wary eye out. There stings are not as severe as the box jelly fish which is out of season at the moment, but are still best avoided.
On the walk back to the campground we spot three or four huge manta rays with their long tails basking in the shallows only a couple of feet from us.
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Australia day 59 – Cape Range National Park, WA
We are up before dawn this morning, and at the ranger’s office by 7.30 am in order to be second in the queue for a camping pitch in the national park. It’s cloudy and much cooler, the first dull day of our trip. Has this anything to do with the fact that we’ve just bought snorkeling gear on the assumption that the good weather was going to continue? There is a well defined booking procedure for obtaining a pitch which involves paying a park entry fee to the ranger. While we wait for to pay the ranger is radioing all the camp grounds to find out how many pitches are available today and we can then choose which one we want to take. The ranger then radios ahead to secure our pitch for us. But when we arrive there is some confusion as a French woman has arrived 10 minutes before us and been directed to our pitch. Each campground has volunteer hosts who manage the site and on this occasion they hadn’t checked this woman’s reservation slip, simply assuming that she was the booking that had been radioed through. The confusion is soon resolved, and French lady is dispatched to another site. It later turns out that said French lady had been here yesterday without a booking and the whole process had been explained to her and she had been turned away to come back today. Obviously she hadn’t fully grasped the niceties of the process even so!
There are about 16 campsites in the park with only a handful of pitches on each. We are at
Lakeside where there are seven pitches and no facilities apart from a long-drop toilet. The campsite is tucked into the dunes with a little shade provided by some pines, a lovely white sand beach and turquoise blue water. This is one of the three main snorkeling areas along the coast, so we have done well to get a place here. Our neighbours are mainly families who have taken their children out of school to travel. Judging by the number of families in the area this seems to be nothing out of the ordinary. Although attempts at home schooling seem to be giving rise to some strife on one side of us and it is only 9am. It’s easy to see why as neither parent seems to have either the temperament or inclination for it!
The Ningaloo Marine Park stretches along the west coast of North West Cape Peninsular. It protects the Ningaloo Reef which stretches from Red Bluff in the south to Exmouth in the north. Ningaloo Reef is the largest fringing reef in the world, covering 5000 sq km. In parts the reef is only a 100 metres off shore and it is possible distinguish it by the huge waves breaking over it. The existence of the reef creates shallow lagoons which are home to a huge range of fish species. It’s too windy and choppy to snorkel today though.
There are a huge numbers of bays and beaches to explore along the coast and but today we drive Yardie Creek at the southern end of the sealed coastal road. Beyond this point a 4wd drive is needed to cross the treacherous river mouth and continue the 95kms along the sandy road to Coral Bay. There is an excellent one-and-half hour walk up the Yardie Creek Gorge. It’s classed as a moderately difficult trail which takes us high above the creek with fabulous views over Ningaloo Reef and the silted river mouth. Yardie Creek is the only all year round creek on the peninsular and meanders through a perpendicular red limestone gorge which is home to rock wallabies and several species of bird.
The day is rounded off with a communal ‘sausage sizzle’ back at the campsite. This is a farewell bbq for some long-stayers on the site (stays are limited to a maximum of 28 days) at which sausages in bread and a little freshly caught fish and BYO drinks are on the menu. Surprisingly, you might think, we only have one beer and a little lime and soda so it’s a rather dry night for us! This impromptu bbq replaced the daily ‘happy hour’ held on the site each evening as the sun goes down. Campers pull up a chair overlooking the beach and come together for a get-to-know-you chat.
We have extended our Wicked van hire for another 10 days, so that we now don’t have to return it until 10th June, three days before our flight to Bali. The plan is to get to Perth about a week before we leave Australia in order to sort out our Indian visa and explore Perth and surroundings whilst it is being processed..
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Tagged Australia, Cape Range National Park, Western Australia
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Australia day 58 – Onslow Bush Camp to Exmouth, WA
We have clocked up 6000 kilometers since we left
Darwin and we have still some 1200 between us and Perth. At this rate we may easily clock up another 2000 km at least before we finish the trip. Heading south we stop at the Nanutarra Roadhouse for ablutions (the bush camp has no facilities and insufficient vegetation cover to protect our modesty from the other campers), to replenish water supplies and have breakfast. There is a pretty rest area alongside the roadhouse on the banks of the Ashburton River and we only have to share it with a flock of noisy White Corellas.
It’s a long drive to our next destination – the North-West Cape. As we leave the Pilbara behind the landscape is dissected by ridges which from afar look like long straight walls across an otherwise flat and arid landscape. It is hard to comprehend that, in another season, this north-west country can be under water. But the numerous floodway signs along the Coastal Highway are constant reminders that much of north-western Australia can be flooded and impassable in the Wet. What a transformation that must be! Dry creeks beds and shrunken rivers also bear testament to the effects of the dry and the extent to which the character of this country changes from one season to the next.
Next stop Exmouth is on the east side of the North-West Cape peninsular. It’s the gateway to the Cape Range National Park and the Ningaloo Marine Park on the west side. Numerous trips for snorkeling, diving, fishing and swimming with whale sharks are based out of here and the sandy coastline offers many wonderfully unspoilt beaches. The town itself is nothing special and is only of interest as a place to stock up on supplies. Although there is a huge marina under-development which may well make this a destination in its own right.
We are hoping to camp in the National Park where there is several small beach-side camp grounds strung along the coast, but so popular are they that by the time we arrive at the Exmouth visitors centre around 2.30pm there are no pitches available, in fact all the grounds had been full by 9am! To be sure to secure a site for tomorrow night we must be at the ranger’s office at the entrance to the park by 8am! So we take a pitch at Yardie Homestead which is the nearest caravan park to the national park. It’s probably the busiest site we have stayed on by far. It’s an opportunity to catch up on our all our laundry and have showers as there will be no facilities once we are in the National Park apart from long drop toilets.
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Australia day 57 – Onslow, WA
The
Ashburton River is certainly a beautiful spot and particularly in the warm glow of early morning light; the eucalypts that line the bank reflected in its mirror still waters. In this area of the Pilbara trees only grow along river banks – the only places with sufficient water to sustain them presumably – providing an indication of river valleys long before the bed comes into view. The nights are now quite chilly and the chill doesn’t leave the air until the sun is well up. Even at 8am I still need a fleece to keep the shivers at bay. Tiny ants are everywhere in this camping area and they are very invasive. I have succumbed to wearing socks (the first time since we arrived in Darwin) with my trousers tucked into stop the little blighters running up my legs and forever nipping.
We spend the day in Onslow trying to find enough to occupy us until the evening, for we have come here specifically to see the Stairway to the Moon. This naturally phenomenon only occurs at certain points along the north-west coast hen only three days a month when the low tide and full moon coincide. As the moon rises light is reflected in the pools left by the retreating sea creating the effect of stairway up to the moon. The best place to see this is in Broome, but were there too early in the month. Unfortunately, there is too much cloud on the horizon tonight and the moonrise is completely obscured. It is only later that the moon emerges shrouded in streaks of cloud that a shaft of light reflects on the sea – beautiful still but not quite what we had hoped to see.
We spent the day pleasantly enough visiting Old Onslow – which was moved, literally, to it’s present site in the 1920s due to the silting of the Ashburton `River estuary – the beaches, walking along the foreshore boardwalk as far as the salt jetty and doing a spot of fishing (still nothing on the end of the line though! ) Onslow is small and very quiet – people come here primarily to fish – and doesn’t warrant more than a couple of days.
In the evening we return to the Onslow Bush Camp which tonight has attracted several other campers.
Australia day 56 – Onslow, WA
The drive from the bush camp into Onslow takes us past hundreds of huge termit mounds scattered on the northern side of the road and there are large milky blue pools saturated with salt and lined with salt depositis. This is a salt-mining town and a popular centre for fishing and there are no other distractions. It has a pleasant shady main street with trees down the centre of the road. A post office, supermarket, tourist information centre, a couple of petrol station, a hotel, two caravan parks a couple of other shops and a hospital. There are two beaches, Sunset and
Sunrise and a massive conveyor belt jetty which must be at least a kilometer in length and deposits salt onto waiting cargo ships for export. We have lunch and a spot of fishing at 4-mile creek just outside town. There are several others there, but no one is having any luck. So we drive out to 3mile Pools camping ground on the `Asburton River. This is beautiful spot right on the bank of this tree-lined river. No swimming though, as a croc has been seen in the area recently. No fish are biting either, but who cares, this is just a beautiful place to soak up the surroundings.
An Aussie stops for a chat, as Aussies do. It turns out that he is planning to take his 27 year old, 2wd van along the Gibb River Road (a challenging 4wd drive at the best of times, according to all the information we’ve received)! Perhaps we are just not crazy enough for outback travel?
Wild life is still proving to be elusive; although a feral cat or was it a dingo or even possibly a fox – it’s too dark to be sure – comes trotting passed our van after dark. On the other hand there is plenty of the irritating variety. Millions of little ants are scurrying everywhere and they bite. Trousers tucked into socks are the only way to prevent them running underneath your clothes. And having just read about hazardous spiders that come out at night, we notice an enormous big-bodied spider out for a stroll, and most likely it’s dinner, just by our feet! I feel the safety of the van calling. Time for bed.
Australia day 55 – Miaree Pool to Onslow Road Bush Camp
Back for 40 or so kilometres for a bit of shopping in Karratha. Karratha is the commercial centre of the Pilbarra and a mecca for shopping – which is not difficult in these parts since there are few towns of any size between here and Port Hedland 270 km up the coast. There is a reasonable shopping mall with a choice of four supermarkets which is quite something, plus a range of other retail shops. Karratha is a relatively new town, built in the 1960s and if the amount of new build going on is anything to go by it is still continuing to expand. Typical tropical architecture of single story corrugated houses with shallow overhanging roofs make for a neat if rather soulless town with plenty of roundabouts (traffic lights don’t seem very popular in the north). It was originally built to house the overflow of workers from the
port of Dampier just up the road and people are here to work in the iron, salt, gas and fertiliser industries.
Days just seem to be racing by and our progress down the coast has started to slow from the initial spurt on leaving Broome. By late afternoon we get as far as Onslow Road Bush Camp 7 km along the turn off to Onslow. No-one else is camping at the huge site sheltering behind a lone rocky outcrop a vast sparse plain.
It’s also a haven for flies – which fortunately are not biters – and some ferocious-looking insects bigger than hornets with trailing bottoms that look as though they could deliver a thoroughly nasty sting. Luckily they don’t seem too interested in us, but nonetheless we retreat to the van for some blogging in peace.
There is a full moon and basking in the warmth of a camp fire, sipping G&Ts (beer in Andy’s case) surveying this remote and endless scrub by the light of the moon. Magical!
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Australia day 54 – Roebourne to Karratha
The coast from Port Hedland through Roebourne all the way to Onslow is known as the Pilbara – a largely flat and featureless coastal plain Along this stretch there are only a few transport towns that ship tonnes of iron ore overseas, while inland are the mines and company towns that supply them. It is an inhospitable and harsh environment and it’s endless sameness doesn’t make for particularly interesting driving. As ever, the tourist bumpf makes it sound very inviting and the pristine wild and rugged coastline is certainly very beautiful and the interior is reputedly spectacular. Inland Pilbara is home to the national parks of Karijini and Millstream Chichester which sound very appealing with deep gorges, wonderful waterfalls and tranquil waterholes. Getting to them involves a detour of 450 km from the
Coastal Highway and access into the parks themselves is only by unsealed road.. So we plan instead to push on further south with the idea of spending some time on the Coral Coast around Exmouth and Coral Bay.
We get waylaid in the laundry by a Canadian who has been working out here for five years and must be living – temporarily or semi-permanently, we don’t discover which – on the caravan park. Before we know it, it’s 10am and we still have more laundry to do, showers to have and packing up to do. We get off around 11am to do some shopping in Karratha just up the road. After getting the daily bag of ice for the eskie and tonight’s dinner, lunch in a very pleasant park, we make are way to a local beauty spot and camp ground at Miaree Pool on the Maitland River. This is a delightful spot for a bit of fishing in the late afternoon light. Needless to say, no fish are biting!
We briefly chat with a young Australian couple who are travelling with a very large dog. Travelling with a dog or any type of pet is very limiting in Australia. Pets are not welcome at most caravan parks and are not allowed in the national parks. They had just come from Karijini National Park in the Pilbara interior and had had to leave the dog with some friends of friends in living in Tom Price. They were very enthusiastic about the scenery – the gorges in particular – and were sure that it was accessible by 2wd.
We are now considering whether we should make the detour to visit Karijini. But first we plan to go to Onslow and see the Stairway to the Moon, more of which later.
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Australia day 53 – Clearville Beach to Roebourne
After breakfast, we spend an hour walking to the far end of the beach. It is high tide or thereabouts and the beach has taken on a different character this morning. More sand, less rocks. It’s not a partcularly inviting sea, not the usual light blue beckoning you to swim. It has a more raw and wild appeal. There is no-one else on the length of the beach, and only a couple of vans are visible on the dunes at the far end.
Roebourne is a deadly quiet township noteworthy for its many fine old stone buildings dating back to the pioneer days of the 19th century. The tavern appears to be permanently closed and the hub of the town seems to centre on the General Supply Store – which sells every thing from food and clothes to TVs, music centres and fishing tackle – and the library – which confusingly is no longer housed in the original library building which fulfils some other purpose. The Visitors Centre is housed in the original stone gaol complex which includes the old courthouse and police station. It closes at 3.30pm and with the only access to a public water supply.
The tourist bumpf makes the coastline up to Point Sampson sound interesting and after spending some time in Roebourne library on the internet (payment only required sites requiring passwords), we visit Cossack at the mouth of the Harding River – a tiny riverside settlement with good views across the tidal flats – and on to Settlers Beach for a picnic lunch and a walk down to the sea which is a couple of hundred yards out. There are an enormous number of small crabs scurrying in groups hither and thither then suddenly burying into the sand to disappear from sight. There are lots of snails and starfish too. The lookout above the beach provides sweeping 360 views of the tidal flats, the beach and the enormous Rio Tinto loading jetty at
Cape Lambert further round the coast.
Tonight we are paying for our pitch – we need to do laundry and have a shower; and whilst we could do the former at a launderette we have yet to find any reasonable public showers.
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Australia day 52 – Afghan Well Roadside Site to Cleaverville Beach, WA
Another long day of driving racking up a further 450km. The scenery approaching Port Headland is more hilly providing a bit of welcome interest. Some wags have placed hard hats on top of the termite mounds just outside town – a eccentric reminder of its industrial heritage. We stop here primarily to replenish our water supplies but can’t find a standpipe anywhere. The standpipe that should be in the Community Park seems to have been removed as part of what looks like a general facelift. Port Headland as it’s name might suggest, is a huge port supporting the mining industry that dominates this corner of north-western Australia. It handles the iron ore that is mined in Normanton. As a consequence it is not a picturesque town with a rugged foreshore. Useful for topping up on our food stocks but not a place to linger.
About 190km further south, just past Roebourne we take an unsealed road towards Clearville Beach. The road hasn’t yet been graded and is badly corrugated to begin with causing the van to rattle and shake alarmingly. Fortunately it improves and we make good time along most of the 13km to the coast. For $7 it is possible to find a completely secluded spot, without facilities of course, on the sand dunes overlooking the beach, and with a bit of judicious parking so as not to get stuck in the sand, even a 2wd can camp here. The tide is out, a long way out, revealing a great expanse of sand and rock. Such gloriously pristine surroundings all to ourselves! As the sun sets we take a stroll along the shore and remind ourselves once again how lucky we are.
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Tagged Afghan Well Roadside Site, Australia, Cleaverville Beach, Western Australia
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Australia day 51 – Broome to Afghan Well Rest Area, WA
We finally prise ourselves away from Broome to continue our journey south. The highway between Broome and Port Headland, some 800 kilometres further down the west coast, traverses the edge of the Great Sandy Desert. This is not a desert in the commonly understood sense of arid sand dunes and no vegetation. Along the coast it is an endless plain of scrub; sometimes only grasses, sometimes interspersed with a few shrubs and trees. Many of the latter looking like up-turned besoms; all intertwined twigs converging in a point and no leaves. The Great Northern Highway follows the coast running straight and monotonous. There is nothing along this stretch apart from a couple of roadhouses (petrol stations, usually with caravan parks attached, which provide meals and some supplies). The horizon seems very close and the extent of the vistas limited giving a peculiar sense of being hemmed in despite the vastness of this desert – on the map a white featureless expanse stretching east from the coast and devoid of any other roads apart from the odd track here and there leading to the sea.
We drive all day, covering about 450 km with aim of stopping overnight at the Afghan Well Roadside Site just past Pardoo Roadhouse. According to the book there is an old, shady and secluded camping ground back from the highway marked only by a palm tree. In the days when the Afghans travelled with their camel caravans, they would plant a date seed wherever they camped. Most died apparently, some came to nothing, but some flourished. (Later we discover that these ancient camel trains were manned by drivers from Northern India and not Afghanistan, but the story is still rather romantic nonetheless.) It sounds ideal, but can we find it? After all a palm in this landscape should stick out like a sore thumb. We realise we have gone too far and turn back, but still can’t locate the spot. Only by clocking the distance exactly from the Cape Keraudren turn off, do we find the small track leading well back off the highway to several date palms surrounded by paperpark trees; a delightful little hidden spot providing the only shady for miles. In it’s midst, the marker palm sans fronds – no wonder we couldn’t spot it from the road! And, at last, we have found a place which, not surprisingly, we have all to ourselves.
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Tagged Afghan Well Rest Area, Australia, Broome, Western Australia
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