Goldwire Rest area (nearly Broome)

10/5/13

We had an early morning snorkel and then left Coral Bay.  After a bit of driving, fighting a head wind all the way, we arrived in Exmouth.  Stupid road layout makes you drive all the way to the top to come back around to the reef.  Anyway, after an extra 40km we arrived at the Cape Range National Park to find out there is no camping places left.  We went in anyway as day visitors, and found that the camping areas were tiny, and at least one only has place for 7 caravans.  This is a vast area, and was very disappointing that we were not allowed to stay there.  Deserted car parks would have been ideal. Grrrrr.

So, we went to the fist snorkeling area and just went in from the beach. Was really pretty crappy compared to what we had at point Queeba and a big drift current made it had for some of us to see what we wanted. We went to the next place, Oyster Bay, which had some amazing clam shells just washed up on the beach. I went in there but because the tide was low there was not enough room to swim over the coral, so had to be happy with the edges. Even the edges had all the good stuff, so it was shame that we couldn't be there at high tide. The water clarity wasn't the best anyway.

 So we headed out of Exmouth and drove into the night, and stayed at a free road side camp 45mins drive south of exmouth. Leaving Exmouth early probably didn't matter, cause the next days were windy, which would have kept the water clarity poor anyway.

We don't have any photos of this, because Lidia's camera really is broken now, and we don't want to risk the cannon.

 

 

11/5/13

Next day was a driving day, headwind again, and I'm starting to think that this is the reason that people go the other way..? Just drove until we had enough, then stopped at a free roadside stop.

 

12/5/13

Arrived at  Parabadoo. Surprisingly, fuel here was cheaper than Exmouth.. On to Tom Price, and found the first real supermarket we have seen for a while, so filled up the cupboard and fridge again then drove into Karijini National Park. We went straight to "Dales Camp" because it was all sealed roads to get there and dropped off the caravan. We walked into Dales George and did all of the walking tracks there. The water was not the icy rock water we were expecting, and was not unpleasant to swim. We swam in the two pools below the water falls and it was great. Water was very clear, and the water in the water fall coming out of the ground, was warm.. Must be a some type of hot spring..?  It was too nice there not swim.

 

The walking track through the George was fun, because you pretty much made your own tracks, with lots of slippery rocks and stepping stones.

 

The rocks on the walk had some amazing colours, and even found some containing bands of blue asbestos..  The layer looked and felt hard like a rock, but you could pick out the fibres.. This band was around 10mm thick.

13/5/13.
After the awesome gorges yesterday, we went to see the rest of them at the Weno Gorge.  These ones were even better, but caught us off guard, as you have to wade/swim the walking track...
We changed into our improvised clothing, and continued anyway.  It was really worth the effort, as the water had smoothed out the rock gorges, making them a natural waterslide.

Handrail Pool
Named because you have to climb down the rocks using a hand rail, as demonstrated by my beautiful assistant)

Walking track to Kermit Pools

Kermit Pool
 

After the walk/swim/slide, we made it to the Kermit pools.  Luckily Graham had packed the swimming goggles because Lidia dropped the lens cap into the waterslide which took it into the pool, and those things don't float.  Graham put on the goggles and swam to the bottom, (estimated 3m deep at the water fall) and found 2 pairs of sunglasses, and 1 pair of eye glasses before finding the lens cap. All good. Note fore later - I think its worth looking for treasures at waterfalls and places people can drop stuff in..

14/5/13.

Somehow, we missed the Fern Pool.  We nearly decided not to go, because it was raining and 13 degrees C, but, because Graham had the car keys, we went :)

Lucky we did too, because this was the nicest swimming pool of all the gorges - very clear, large and deep.  The water was warm compared to the air temperature, and the waterfall warmer again.  Strangely, we had the place to ourselves.

We started the drive to Port Hedland in the rain, and were planning to stop just South of the town so Graham didn't have to stay there another night.. But, when we arrived at the rest area, it was right on the highway, and not nice. So we continued into town.






First stop was the HBI plant, which was missing.  This is all that was left (should be a massive building right next to this)

From there we went straight into South Hedland, and got little bit lost.  I just remember the only road in led to the shopping centre.  Not there are roundabouts, aquatic centres and stuff everywhere.  We eventually found the chopping mall, which has had some upgrades, and topped up of fridge and cupboard up again with the good stuff.

 

I took Lidia for a tour of port hedland, before heading to Cooke Point. Needing the navigator a couple of times not to get lost.  I can recall jogging these streets almost every night, but didn't recognise most of the area.

 

Beach at Cooke Point:



 Cooke Point Caravan Park

 














We filled the Pathy, and headed out of town.  The Port Hedland tour took about 1 hour, which was dragged out a bit longer than Graham wanted.

We drove for around 80kms to a free camping area at De Grey River, and set up camp..  It was definitely beer o'clock.

Today (15/5/13) - Grahams Birthday Eve

 We drove  of to 80mile beach caravan park to have a look.  Graham thought he might do some fishing, but with the wind and rain, the conditions were no good.  There were some amazing shells though on the beach.  We collected a bucket full of pretty ones, even Graham was enjoying the change of pace collecting shells.. Though, not as much as Lidia

After then, we drove and drove. The temperature topped out at 21 degrees C before getting cold again, and raining on and off most of the way..  Not really the Port Hedland weather I remembered.

We had enough driving, and decided to stop at the Goldwire Rest area, which was the last free stop outside of Broome.

 

 

Coral Bay

7/5/13.
We arrived in Carnarvon early, and were surprised to find it was a pretty crappy town.  I always through it was like a resort town. We were hoping to stock up our fridge and freezer with fresh seafood, but, it was way overpriced and didn' look that good.  We also skipped the overpriced crappy 1 mile jetty walk.  Stocked up on groceries at wollies, and a case of Fat Yak on special. Graham wanted to buy some fresh goat meat (because there were so many on the roads) and make a nice curry, but there were no butchers, and wollies missed a goat section in the meat department.


We bought ourself a snorkeling set each, and headed north to Pt Quobba blowholes camp ground.  We set up camp and went for a walk to see the blowholes, which were actually working (strike of luck). 

 

It was pretty overcast, but we cracked open the snorkeling gear and went to the beach.  We didn' take any photos, but there was an outer reef that stopped the waves, leaving just a bay like area with masses of coral.  It was pretty awesome, and we could see all of the pretty little fish that dive in and out of  coral some massive fish lurking around too.

 

That night was gail forced winds and torrential rain, we dropped the pop top down and slept with the roof down.  We survived the wind and rain no problems, other than for the noice and shaking of the van.  Next day was the same, and because the beach side camp was only $5.50 per night,we decided to waste a day there to let the weather improve.

 

We did go see the blowholes again, but because of the wind and heavy seas, the waves were just smashing the area where we stood the previous day, so we couldn't get close enough.  We went to the beach, but got our legs sandblasted. So we watched some movies, and cracked open a few fat yaks.

 

Today 9/5/13, we left camp and drove to Coral Bay.  We checked into a caravan park (expensive doh), then headed down to the beach to go snorkeling again.  Graham had a great idea to put Lidia's camera into a Glad seal lock bag so we could take it under water for photos.  Unfortunately, the water was not very clear due to the weather, and the camera didn't take very good photos. Also, the bag leaked a bit, and the camera took on some water.  We did get 1 last photo out of it before it died.

 

 

Gladstone Scenic Lookout

Hamelin Station Stay (04.05.2013)

 

We left Kalbarri on Saturday hopping that before we hit Monkey Mia the school holiday would be over.  So to do this we went to spend a day in the Kalbarri National Park. The highlights of this park are: Natural Window and Z-Bend.  

 



Natural Window
 

 

On the way to Z-Bend

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

From the safety of the Z-Bend's lookout you can see the gorge plunges 150 meters to the river below or you can walk down and see the river from close up. The rest of the day (besides couple of more lookouts: Ross Graham and Hawk's Head) we spent driving towards Denham and stopped at the Hamelin Station Stay. Look at the sunset.

 

Sunset at Hamelin Station

Denham (05.05.2013)

 

We found a quite cheep caravan park in Denham and went to explore the Francois Peron National Park. When you hear names like: Little Lagoon and Big Lagoon you expect paradise right? Well you are wrong. 

Little Lagoon
 

We did 120kms sand driving that day and besides Skipjack Point Lookout the rest of the park is not even worth mention.  At the lookout we were lucky to see the  manta ray and the turtle.  Lidia was quite happy with that.






























At the end of the drive we visited the Peron Homestead Precinct which offers a glimpse of life from the 1950's when the park was a working sheep station. There is a natural hot tube fed from an artesian bore near the homestead that originally supplied water to the station's stock and now is popular with visitors. We had a little "dip" in the "hot tub" and it was like 40C in it!!!!!

 

 

Monkey Mia (06.05.2013)

We woke up at 6am to make sure we could get to Monkey Mia before 7:45am as this is the best time to get there to feed dolphins. Look at Lidia, I think this is the first time she is happy to wake up at 6am.

It's just 23kms from Denham so we had almost an hour to kill.  We went around the resort and made some new friend: Frank from France.  The fee entry to the park is just $8.00 per person which was a surprise for us as we were expecting much more.

As you can see from the picture there were more people than dolphins.

 Monkey Mia dolphins are protected to ensure the dolphins maintain their hunting and survival skills. Therefore, the dolphins are only fed a small amount of fish (like 3 or 4 fish per dolphin and their allow to feed just 5 of the same dolphins) so just few people are selected from crowd of onlookers to feed the dolphins.  Lidia wasn't the lucky one the first time but just as we were going to leave the place, dolphins decided to come back. So we stayed for the next "show" and this time, with less tourisms around, Lidia got lucky:).

 

Beside dolpnis you can spot some emus around the resort and turtles in the ocean.

 

On the way back from the Shark Bay we stopped at the Ocean Park Aquarium, which offer a rarely seen insight into the natural habitat of the regions spectacular marine life. We've learnt a lot today about some marine life in WA:) Graham's favourites were stone fish and sharks.

 

After than we had a swim at Shell Beach. An amazing pure white beach that has been created entirely of billions of tiny cockle shells layered up to eight meters deep and stretching for over 120kms.

The water there is so salty that it's easy to just lay down and relax.

 

Hamelin Pool Stromatolites - our next stop. The water at this pool is twice as saline as usual sea water. Shark Bay is one of only two places in the world where living marine stromatolites exist. These living fossils contain microbes similar to those found in 3,500 million year old rocks - the earliest record of life on earth. Stromatolites are rock -like structures built by microbes (single-celled cyanobacteria). This unusual life form grows to about 60cm tall and look like mushroom-shaped rocky domes.

 

 

 

Our place for tonight: a free camp site at the Gladstone Scenic Lookout.

 

 

Kalbarri

Yesterday, there was just a boring strip of roads. Lidia wanted to stop where some guy had some "friendly" dingoes, but when we arrived, there were big signs saying that if you haven't booked, you don't get to see them. Lidia rang from the driveway as we were entering, but.. we got refused entry.. I hope the dingoes were friendlier then the owner.. booo

 

The area around Greenough was claiming fame for growing trees that were blown over in a wind storm, and kept growing.  There were lots of better examples than the photo below, but we didnt stop on the highway to take them. One whole farm road, had these trees the same as this, all in a line but laying down.  At least they were easy to climb. I climbed half way up this tree

Next stop was the Pink Lake.We didn't take this next photo (downloaded from google), but it shows how its meant to look.

 

It was overcast and raining when we got there, and they said it needs the sun to bring out the pink, but is was definately pink, although the photo doesn't really show it.

 

This area doesn't have any free camping, so we found a cheap unpowered site just to rest and relax a bit.  We did have our first ever WA rock lobster for dinner though.

Next morning (today), we got an early start and drove to Kalbarri.  We stopped at almost every costal inspection point, and did our walking dues there to see the scenes

 

 

 

On one of them, we saw a school of dolphins. There were loads of them, and they were staying on the surface for a while, then disappearing for a minute or two. I guess they were resting then hunting?  But I have never seen so many dolphins together before.

 

We decided to stay in a caravan park in Kalbarri, to top up our water supply, and relax a bit before heading further into the national park were they cautioned us that there is no water avaliable. Graham went snorkeling in one of the protected areas (with swiming goggles only), and saw some pretty cool things, although the waves were stiring up the sand and restricting visability a bit.  The people next to us had a 90kg Great Dame dog, so Lidia caught up on some dog patting..