Driving west, we stopped for a night at Bullara Station. Still a working cattle station, we really liked it. There were lots of funky art works around, mostly in steel, and free damper in the evening (BYO jam) accompanied by some decent live music and bush poetry.
In the morning, looking to stretch our legs, we followed a rough track out to a red sandhill then stopped by the homestead on our way out for coffee and scones on the lawn while the resident baby emu kept us entertained.
A couple of hours later we were lunching at Exmouth, gateway to Ningaloo Reef. We stocked up on supplies and booked ourselves onto Ningaloo Discovery's sailing catamaran the next day for a snorkelling trip out to the reef, and hopefully an encounter with a whale shark or two. Then it was on to the coast and our home for the next 5 nights - Yardie Homestead. After setting up, we went and checked out the wreck of the SS Mildura, or what's left of it, before going up the hill to the Vlamingh Head Lighthouse to watch the sunset. The sunset was a bit of a dud, but the wine was nice.
In the morning we were picked up by our Ningaloo Discovery hosts and headed for our cat, and the reef. It was a great day, with snorkels inside and outside the reef, and plenty of marine life including humpbacks, turtles, rays, and a big manta ray. But no whale shark. The spotter planes were up for hours, but the star attraction failed to show. Nevertheless, it was a great day out on, and in the water, and our hosts told us it was their policy to offer another day, free, any time in the next two years if we missed out on the big WS experience. So we thought, bugger it, "We're not sure when we'll be back, so how about Thursday?" They said yep, no probs, and we were booked in for three days' time. With luck we might still get to swim with a whale shark.
For our next adventure we decided to drive around to the east side of the Cape Range NP to have a look at the gorges which split the range. Susie had the guidebook, with a map of an 8 km loop walk offering great views. Beauty, let's do that. So off we went.
Driving south from Exmouth, we came to a road going west into the NP. "Is this the one?" I said. "Yep." So we hung a right and bounced along a 4WD track further and further into this quite spectacular canyon, crossing and recrossing dry creek beds, until we came to road's end. Getting out of the car, Susie still had the booklet in hand with a mud map of this loop trail. "So where's the start?" "Must be up there."
So up we go on this "sort of" track which keeps getting steeper and less distinct, to the point where there was no track. I mentioned this to Susie, who was forging on upwards. "It has to be up there, we'll cut it soon."she says. Up we go, and sure enough we cut a track which goes steeply up a ridge to the top of the canyon. "Must be it"
Continuing upwards, the trail became more and more unstable with shattered, loose rock underfoot and frequent undercuts. I was mumbling things like "Geez, this track is a bit suss!" We stopped a couple of times and discussed the merits of continuing, but eventually arrived at the top for magnificent views back down the canyon. Beautiful. Only one way to get back down - reverse our steps - carefully.
We finally reached the point where we had cut the track and saw there was a rail across the track and a sign a bit further down, so we continued to it. Stepping over the rail, we read the sign: TRACK CLOSED DUE TO LOOSE DANGEROUS SURFACE.
Hmm... We got out the booklet and map again. Turns out we had driven up Shothole Canyon instead of Charles Knife Gorge, the turn off for which was a further 7 kms south! Ah well, we had a great little adventure and got some great views from the top of our climb!
The following day we walked a trail in Mandu Mandu Gorge on the western side of the range, first along the dry river bed, then back along the ridge top for some pretty good views. Then we headed south to Yardie Creek and walked up the gorge along the clifftops above the water. Pretty nice.
That night it blew a gale. There were koalas and dogs flying past everywhere. We were rockin' and rollin' in our camper, but everything hung together, unlike some of the rooftop campers round the place. By morning most of them had been blown flat or damaged in some way, and their occupants had retreated to their vehicles.
It was still blowing in the morning, and we called our whale shark company. "Yep, we're still going out. The wind is forecast to drop about 11." Sure enough, we cruised around a bit inside the reef and right on time the wind died. We headed outside, spotter planes up, in beautiful conditions, in search of the elusive Whale Sharks.
And you know what? We missed out. They never showed, BUT....
We got a damn good second prize! Just after swimming with some cool rays, turtles and a tiger shark, Susie yelled from just in front of me, "Whales!" I popped my head up to see a pod of humpback mums and calves about 10 metres away swimming straight at us. They split and went both sides of our little group, with one of the calves passing about 3 metres in front of me, and the mum the same distance from Susie. It was all over in a few seconds, but it was magic. We all popped up after they were gone and looked at each other with huge grins. Did that really happen? Wow!
All the water shots were taken during our two expeditions by one of our lovely guides swimming with us.
In the morning we packed up and headed 150 kays down to the coast to Coral Bay. Nice place - 2 caravan parks, 2 pubs and a snorkelling beach with nice coral only a few metres out. We snorkelled, walked along the beach, hung out, went to the pub for a meal and watched the Wallabies get smashed by the All Blacks, again.
After 2 nights the wind was still blowing hard from the SW, it was overcast and cool, and we felt the call of the inland. So off we went to Kennedy Range NP, about 170 kays inland from Carnarvon. After a longish drive we rolled slowly into the pretty nice camping area below the Range at 3, set up, and had enough time to do the short walk into Honeycomb Gorge. Beautiful sandstone walls towered above us, and the 40 year old rock climber in me was picking out lines. Probably a good thing he can't fight his way out of the 70 year old body he's trapped in!
There was a great communal fireplace in this nice bush camp area, where a number of us gathered in the lowering dark to swap travel tales. It was here that we learned of The Sunrise Hill. So at an ungodly hour we crawled out of our warm bed, jumped in the Prado and as instructed drove 1.8 kms east out of camp. It was still dark and we couldn't see any sign of a hill, but got out and pushed into the scrub in the designated direction. Sure enough, we soon found ourselves climbing a low rocky mound which gave us a great view of the west side of the range. Cameras at the ready we waited, and it was worth getting up for. A beautiful sunrise and a lovely soft light slowly revealed the sandstone walls of the range in front of us.
After brekky, we headed out for a day of scrambling around the beautiful, rugged, red gorges. First up was both arms of Temple Gorge, then the Escarpment Trail up onto the top of the range and some great views, then to finish ourselves off we wandered up Draper Gorge, passing a series of dry waterholes until the very last one, which still had water in it. There was no one around, so we slipped in for a quick cool-off dip, just avoiding getting sprung by another couple!
We were tired little puppies that evening, but we had really enjoyed the Kennedy Ranges.
Next day saw us on the road again to Denham, the hub of the Shark Bay area. Just before reaching Gascoyne Junction we did a little detour we'd been told about and found a very pretty stretch of the Gascoyne River complete with deep water and a family of black swans. Arriving in Denham, we found a nice camp spot next to the beach and watched a pretty good sunset.
Our activity next day was a trip up the very sandy track into Francois Peron NP. Passing Big Lagoon we were sad we didn't have kayaks with us. It would have been a magical place to explore. Finally arriving at Cape Peron, the northern most point of the park, we did a 3 km return walk along red dune tops to Skipjack Point. Red sandhills and white beaches - pretty cool, but I thought the most fun part was the drive there and back!
Now, when you go to Shark Bay, you have to go to Monkey Mia, don't you? It's mandatory, isn't it?
Nah, don't bother. We found it decidedly underwhelming. Could have seen more dolphins doing their thing and being far more active while out sailing on Sydney Harbour.
Thankfully that was early, so we had the rest of the day to do way more interesting stuff, and first up was a stop at the old homestead of the ex sheep station which became the Francois Peron NP in the 90s. The attraction here, apart from the old shearing shed and equipment, was an artesian hot tub, the water for which comes up from 540 metres down, and is quite warm! The original bore was put down in 1921 when the station was first started, and is the only thing still operational, but very nice for a soak and a chat, and free!
Then we headed south for Shell Beach - a fascinating place. It's one of, we read, only two beaches in the world made up entirely of millions of tiny white shells. It's huge, and up to 10 metres deep in places. The hard packed shells were once quarried in blocks called coquina and used for building. There are still a couple of old buildings in Denham made from these blocks, and we read an interesting story about a guy who used to cut the blocks - did it at night because of the glare and heat during the day. It was all so white, he said he could see fine at night with no lights!
Next stop on our southerly wandering was the great little fishing town of Kalbarri and it's surrounding NP. Another place I had long wanted to visit.
On our first morning we started the day exceptionally well with a coffee and toasted bacon and egg sandwich at the Bean Drifting coffee cart, overlooking Jacque's Bay and the classic left hand point break, Jacque's Point. Feeling pretty good, we then wandered the trails and lookouts along the sea cliffs south of Kalbarri. That night we enjoyed a fabulous meal at The Jetty Fish Shack - yummy al fresco fish and chips straight out of the butcher's paper, helped down by a very acceptable bottle of reisling, and the boss's very good selection of cruisey blues. Oh, and there was a pretty nice sunset, as well. Outstanding.
The following morning, after the mandatory visit to Bean Drifting, we headed inland to the beautiful gorge cut by the Murchison River. Our main target for the day was the Loop Walk, an 8 km outing which starts along a ridge top, then drops to the river for some rock scrambling and then sand walking before the final climb back out. What a beautiful, peaceful place, and during our whole walk we saw no-one. Had the place completely to ourselves, along with a brown snake, black cockies, beautiful green, black and yellow parrots, finches, and a couple of families of black swans. It started to rain as we walked toward our car after topping out. Timing is everything!
Moving on south, we stopped in at Geraldton to visit Ron - dad of the lovely Debbie and Marie, our wonderful hosts at Avalanche Ski Club. After Ron gave us a bit of a tour and history lesson, we headed inland again to Gabyon Station, a working sheep station, with storm clouds building behind us.
On arrival, there were only 2 other couples in camp. We had a great little "happy hour" at the homestead with owners Mike and Helen, listening to stories about life on the station while thunder rumbled in the darkening sky. Back at the camper we cooked dinner, then sat out under the stars. All serene, no wind, but with increasing cloud to the west and still that rumbling. To bed - and very little sleep! The thunder got louder and closer and seemed to be all around us, with lightning flashes that lit us up like daylight. This was the longest, loudest, most widespread thunderstorm I've ever been under. It lasted from about 9:30 to around 4 am, with a brief respite about 1 am. About 3 we got hit with heavy rain and a mini cyclone which tore our solar reflector blanket clean off the roof, dumping it 150 metres away. Quite a night, but our little house survived it well.
After cleaning up in the morning, and re-attaching the solar blanket, we drove out and headed east again to Sandstone, stormy weather still around with the odd shower.
Next day we headed off on a 250 km unsealed drive south to Lake Ballard. My mate Graham had told us not to miss this dry salt lake with something like 50 sculptures standing around, wide spaced, across the surface. The recent rain had us wondering if the road would be open, but the sign said it was, so off we went. For the most part it was fine, but there was a lot of standing water, some soft slippery bits, and some good washouts. We made it to Lake Ballard okay to find it not dry, but covered in shallow water. No-one else around.
We wanted to climb a rocky hill out on the lake to get a good view, so I chose to wear my Tevas and Susie wore light sailing slippers. Susie's choice wasn't too bad, but mine was. Bad, that is. Every step of mine pulled up about 2kg of red mud stuck to my sandals, kinda like a leg workout in the gym. Hindsight taught us that barefoot or with plastic bags around bare feet was the way to go. But no, once started, we soldiered on out into the red watery wastes to check out it's weird permanent inhabitants.
It was a good afternoon, and we found a really nice campsite with a fireplace for a very pleasant night with only one other couple there. We shared a drink and a chat, then they went off to their own spot and left us alone to enjoy the solitude.
Leaving Lake Ballard, our route took us to Kalgoorlie, where amongst other things we took a high pressure hose to the car and trailer to get rid of the great gobs of now solid, stuck on red mud, and checked out the Super Pit, Kalgoorlie Gold Mine's monster hole in the ground.
Now heading east, we were starting to get the smell of home in our nostrils, but there were a few places to see yet.
A bit east of Norseman, our next night's stop was another working property, Fraser Range Sheep Station. After getting set up we embarked on a 1.5 hour walk through the property to the top of a rocky hill which gave us good views all around. It was very cold that night.
Then it was on across the Nullabor Plain. Where did that name come from, I hear you ask? Well, it comes from the latin "nullus" and "arbor", meaning no tree. Susie had, but I had never been across the Nullabor and was full of anticipation, mainly of standing on the spectacular cliffs of the Bight, with nothing between me and Antarctica.
Stopping for the night at Eucla, we paid a visit to the ruins of the original Eucla Telegraph Station, now partially covered by sand dunes, then walked across the dunes to the beach and the remains of the old pier used to load horses for shipping to the middle east during WW1.
Then onward past those famous Bunda Cliffs, stopping at a few lookouts along the way. And wow, they were every bit as awesome as I had anticipated.
Last stop for the day was Head of Bight - famous for it's whale watching station. When we arrived and found there was a charge for walking past the info centre down to the cliffs, we thought, geez, bit of a rip off! Why would we see more whales here than, say, at home from the top of Long Reef? Well, we paid up and found out. It seems that a bunch of Southern Right Whales use this bay as home for up to 6 months of the year. We saw at least 10 whales, just lolling around quite close in to the cliffs where we stood.
Our stop for the night was the tiny town of Penong. It always interests me the ways some Australian country towns choose to make themselves a bit unique, and Penong chose something quintessentially Oz - the windmill. They have an open air windmill museum! Pretty cool looking at all those windmills, large and small, turning in the breeze.
By now, home was looming large in our sights, and we spent a longish day on the road to Wilmington, southern gateway to the Flinders Ranges, and Stoney Creek Bush Camp, another terrific spot where we able to put our feet up and stare into our own Bush TV after dinner.
Then we went the way we had come, via Broken Hill and a visit with Susie's cousin Pauline, Nyngan, and Mudgee to visit old mate Marg. I hadn't visited the Mudgee area for a while and found myself wondering why. Such beautiful country.
We backed the trailer up the driveway at 1 pm next day, having clocked up 14,460 kms over 45 days and loving every minute. But it was nice to be home. Now for a paddle!
