Geraldton, Yalgoo, Menzies, Newman Rock, Eucla, Ceduna, Clare and Home (August 17 – 23)

A fitting morning to be on our way from Shark Bay towards home, with the rain falling lightly, we packed up camp with heavy hearts and sort of dreading the 4000 or so kilometres we need to do before we reach Mt Martha.

Food stops, fuel stops, wee stops, sleep stops and lots of whales.  It is all a blur.  So many long days in the car, clocking up many kilometres across this vast country of ours and all finished off with a 12 hour final day to make it home instead of another overnighter.  The small price to pay for enjoying more time in the West.

The most memorable night of the journey home being a free camp at Newmans Rock, with a little time for building shelters.

Great Australian Bight

Great Australian Bight

Southern Right Whales

 And now we are home being challenged by freezing weather and the busyness of life!

To sum up our adventure I am struggling for the words to truly express our time away. 

We left on the 3^rd May and arrived home on the 23 August.  113 days on the road, approximately 17,000 kilometres and a whole lot of hours and quite a bit of money as well.  But you cannot put a price on the memories we now have and the time we have spent together becoming a much closer family.

What an experience to be able to spend such precious moments with the ones you love.  We are privileged to have been able to see and do so many wonderful things and to give Cadell and Coen and ourselves such cherished memories.

We have seen the boys grow both physically and most of all emotionally.  They have had to pull their weight and we have all had to work as a team in some exciting and trying times.  And I am pleased to say there was a complete absence of handheld screens or TV for the entire trip, except for our Hema maps and internet searching our next location, on the rare occasion we had reception.

We have all risen to the many challenges and pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones along the way with long days in the car, setting up camp in extreme conditions – (i.e. sweltering heat or howling winds and rain), learning bush mechanics and doctoring skills, not to mention jumping off the back of boats in the middle of the Indian Ocean to swim with enormous fish and other sealife that make you realise how small you really are.

We have had the freedom to just make it up as we went along.  We did not book a single thing before we left and we didn’t miss out on anything we wanted to do.

One of the most important things we all learnt on this journey is to slow down, relax, take the time to watch and listen and truly appreciate the wonders this country provides to those able to explore it.

We are privileged to have each other and to have had this four months together.  What an amazing experience!

Shark Bay World Heritage Area - Denham, Francois Peron National Park, Tamala Station and Steep Point (August 8 - 17)

After a couple of nights in Carnarvon to service Ota and restock and a very nice woodfired pizza night at the Capricorn Caravan Park we headed into the Shark Bay World Heritage Area.

First stop a visit to Hamelin Pool to see the Stromatolites.  Living microbes build stomatolites in the very high saline water and are similar to the earliest forms of life dating back 3000 million years.

Onto Shell Beach which is made up of trillions of tiny cockle shells piled up to 10 metres deep and 1 kilometre wide and extending 120 kilometres along the coastline.  These shells with the help of fresh water over the years compact and they once quarried them for building blocks.  A number of the local buildings are made from them.  The ocean here is twice as salty as normal sea water.

Eagle Bluff is supposedly a great lookout to see an abundance of sea life in the shallow clear water below.  Unfortunately we didn’t see a thing.  We did however nearly get blown into the water ourselves with the gusty cold winds.

As we had no luck spotting the animals in the wild we entertained ourselves with a visit to Ocean Park Aquarium to get up close with all the locals.  A very informative and interesting time was had.

A 3 flippered green turtle

Lionfish

A Cobia (fish), not a shark

Shovel Nose Rays

A Lemon and a Whaler Shark

After a couple of nights in Denham, the only town in Shark Bay we headed into Francois Peron National Park via Peron Homestead, which provides an insight into how life was when the park was an (unsuccessful) working sheep station, back in the 60's.

Francois Peron National Park covers 52,000ha and is home to many threatened species which they have reintroduced, like the bilby, woma python, mallee fowl and other small birds and mammals.

Tyre pressures reduced and we drove the hour of deep red sandy corrugated track and birrida’s (gypsum claypans) to find a campsite. 

A lovely quiet spot just back from the beach which we had to ourselves the whole time we were at South Gregories camp.  Most mornings we woke to watch dolphins feeding just offshore and the boys caught fish for dinner everyday.  Whiting, flathead and bream.  They have also caught Snapper and Wrasse but not big enough to keep.  Ash has now taught the boys to fillet their own catch.  He can now send them on their way and get on with his own fishing! 

Cool nights 

Cadell's Yellowfin Bream and Ash' tiddler

There is a high prevalence of sharks and stone fish (camouflaged and highly venomous) here so swimming and snorkelling is not so appealing and the weather is not nearly so warm with a cool breeze most days.  Great for walking and reading though and of course fishing.  Spent a very relaxing birthday picnicking at Bottle Bay.

Visited Cape Peron and walked the 1.5 kilometres to Skipjack Point, another lookout with outstanding views but very little of the promised sealife to observe below.  Although we did see the cutest little Thorny Devil, we gently patted him and to our surprise he was not at all thorny but soft.  Good disguise.

After a couple more days of fishing and relaxing we headed to Tamala Station for a couple of nights.  We really could get used to all this camping right on the beach.  From here we did a day trip into Steep Point, the most westerly point of mainland Australia.  Another corrugated sandy 100 kilometres or so but so worth it, the waters are such a deep turquoise colour and very warm as it is so close to the Leeuwin Current (a warm ocean current that flows southwards down the west coast).  Steep Point is renowned for the best land based game fishing in the country being so close to the Continental Shelf.  The fishermen clip themselves to hooks mounted in the sides of the cliffs so they don’t get washed away. 

We saved this little guy off the road

Tamala Station

Nor 6

Shelter Bay

We had a swim in the beautiful warm water of Shelter Bay.  And then watched a 3 metre tiger shark cruise up the beach only metres from shore.  Phew!!

After a wonderful day, we were nearly back at camp when we were privileged to watch one of nature’s rare sights.  A male Bustard doing a mating dance for four females.  We had seen this male earlier in the day and thought he was pretty impressive but to see him all fluffed up calling out  his throaty roar (not unlike a quiet lion) was something to behold.  They are a shy bird, not often seen and not dissimilar to an emu but they can fly, growing to 1.5m.  They are happy to be approached by a car but not by people on foot.  We had one of the females almost walk right up to the car.

Unfortunately for us we now have to point Ota for home and make our trek eastwards and  southwards back to chilly Victoria. 

Warroora Station (August 2 - 6)

Only 15 kilometres south from Coral Bay we find ourselves at a most exquisite beach called Maggie’s Camp, part of Warroora Station (pronounced Warra).  All these Stations are 1000s of acres in size and have different camping areas along the length of the coast.

Outhouse with a view

Finally the shore based fishing has improved. We enjoyed  Spangled Emperor for dinner on more than one occasion.  Lots of other fish were caught as well, (longtoms, trevally, rock cod, dart, trigger and some we didn’t know), all too small to keep, but the boys, all 3 of them had so much fun catching them.  Coen even caught an octopus.  And I had so much time to walk, read and relax.

Ash' Spangled Emperor

Coen's Spangled Emperor

Cadell's Spangled Emperor

Longtom

Longtom

Cadell's spiky spotty fish

Coen's spiky spotty fish

Cadell's Dart

Cadell's Trigger Fish

Ash's huge 57cm Spangled Emperor on fly

Bliss

More amazing snorkelling just metres from shore.  We have swum 2 days in a row with a very obliging peaceful turtle and 2 beautiful White Spotted Eagle Rays and the most electric blue little fish you ever did see, amongst other fish and enormous blue sea stars the size of large dinner plates and even bigger colourful clam shells.  Oh and the humpback whales passing just behind the reef, breaching and tail and fin slapping are spectacular to say the least.

If only we had another 4 months!!