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This morning we were packed up and ready to leave early to give us plenty of exploring time through the National Parks of Cape Le Grand and Cape Arid. We've certainly got our monies worth with our Annual WA Parks Pass that enables us to enter any national park without paying the daily rate. We only have to pay for camping, and usually we get away with that because we select the most out-of -the-way campsites accessible by 4WD. It seems to deter the ranger. We're not doing anything underhand, because there is no other way of paying other than cash to the ranger (if/when he comes to collect).
We found a beautiful camp site at Cape Le Grand beach but every site was occupied - another reason why we've been avoiding the 2WD accessible locations. A bitumen road takes you all around the coastline of Cape Le Grand giving beautiful views of more pretty ocean and wonderful rocks and islands. There are many long bushwalks but most are one-way coastal treks that end up at the next lookout, so we didn't do any of the walks here.
Having made such an early start today we were able to move on towards Cape Arid National Park. Halfway between the two National Parks we noticed a 4WD track to a free camp site on the Duke of Orleans Bay (Alexander Road). It wasn't a difficult track at all and the Bay looked good for windsurfing. Unfortunately, there were many people here also but the camping areas were tucked away behind the sand dunes, each one being a bay marked off with plenty of bushland in between. As we arrived we heard over the UHF radio that someone had just rolled their 4WD on the beach and was bleeding pretty badly from his arm. By the time we got there the person had been wisked off to Esperance, his wrecked vehicle left soaking in pools of blood on the beach. It didn't look good. He had apparently been a young guy, driving too fast along the beach and hit a dip that flipped the vehicle 180 degrees so it landed back on it's wheels. The car was a right-off.
We kept to ourselves and after exploring the bay went back to our campsite to prepare dinner. We had some strange visitors asking to borrow a screwdriver. The guy looked about 50 years old but had the most bizarre appearance. He wore purple wrap around sunglasses with yellow tinted lenses and had amazingly long grey dreadlocks that reached his bottom. Meanwhile, his "wife", who was in her 40s, was cross-legged on our tarpaulin as she busily dismantled their portable stereo with our screwdriver. Once she'd repaired that and explained their nomadic existance I asked about the hair. He'd just had it cut that day because it kept dragging in his shit and they'd finally figured out why the flies always followed him about!! I told you they were bizarre! We were invited to their 'place' for drinks but declined, opting to cook a slow casserole.
We woke up this morning to a small gift left by our bizarre friends. We didn't see them again even though we spent most of the day on the beach windsurfing. David rigged up the 6m and stayed out for 1 ½ hours while I sunbaked (first time since Shark Bay). Finally, I went out on his board and the rigged sail once he'd had enough and had a great sail. The water was so clear and the onshore wind meant we could sail up and down the white sandy beach.
We didn't particularly like our camp site because it was dirty and smelly (no toilets) and we'd done all there was to do here so we moved on towards Cape Arid National Park. We didn't have a map for this park so we went to the ranger station, which was on the coastline at the Thomas River. Accessible by 2WD we found 2 camp sites, one run by National Parks and the other by the shire council (free). It was still quite early in the afternoon and we had set ourselves a challenge - to make the $30 cash we had on us last until Adelaide (excluding fuel). We agreed to move on deeper into the National Park where all roads were 4WD only but before we left Thomas River we went exploring (still with the trailer attached). We took a track leading to a beach, ended up in deep soft sand, and had to deflate our tyres just to get out. And of course, inflate them again to drive along the hard gravel access roads through to the other side of the National Park. We'd no sooner taken another turnoff and we hit deep, soft sand again and had to go through the deflate, inflate procedure for the 2nd time that day. It was about 6pm when we finally made it to our free camp site at Seal Creek on the shores of the Great Australian Bight. Our free camp had toilets, fresh tank water, free gas BBQs and good level camp sites. All this, within walking distance of the beach on the other side of the huge sand dunes.
We cooked our gourmet version of 'bangers and mash' again tonight with Thai sausages and sweet potato.
We still had a lot to explore in the Cape Arid National Park so leaving the trailer in the camp ground we visited nearby Poison Creek and Jorndee Creek - all great sites. We returned to collect the trailer and spent some time pouring over our maps to decide which roads to take. We had been warned, by the girl at the Esperance Tourist Bureau, not to take a particular road marked "4WD access only" but we were keen to get to Mt Ragged where the road led. Taking this road would be a good short cut across country to meet up with the Eyre Highway at Balladonia. In the end, we took it and had no trouble at all. We're been seeing lots of wildlife in this part of the trip, since leaving Augusta - mostly emus and rabbits. But we didn't see one vehicle the whole day, which was just as well because it was a very narrow track.
Reaching Mt Ragged we found there was a summit hike of about 3 hours. The 585m high mountain is a steep-sided pre-Cambrian ridge surrounded at about one-third height by a wavecut platform (sound like a Geologist don't I). We found a great little free bush camp right below the mountain and stopped to have cup-a-soup and cold sausage for lunch before beginning our mountain summit!
The climb was unbelievably difficult. The track was loose rubble and the incline so demanding I had to stop to get my breath every ten steps or so towards the top. It was a 1.5km climb up the steep slope but at the top the views were rewarding and we even wrote our names in the visitor's book at the top! The visitor's book showed only 2 other groups of people had climbed Mt Ragged this year and we supposed that meant no one else had camped here since them as there is nothing for miles and miles in any direction.
We had the camp ground to ourselves and it was absolutely perfect. We were pleased to find no fire restriction - finally we cooked our roast lamb we had cryvaced at Pemberton. David built a great hot fire and we put tons of potatoes and pumpkin in the small camp oven and the huge 1.2kg leg lamb roast in the large camp oven. I spread cranberry sauce and fresh rosemary on the lamb and we cooked dried peas in the billy and served it with hot gravy and a bottle of very special red wine from Margaret River. A perfect day!
We did not see another car all day again until we reached the township of Balladonia on the Eyre Highway, which is just a Roadhouse. It took us 3 hours of rocky driving through the bushland of the National Park to reach the Highway but it was a fabulous drive. I'm now writing this with the computer on my lap as we travel along the Nullarbor. We've just crossed a time zone and wound our watches forward 45mins so we are starting to look for somewhere to stop for the night, just West of Cocklebiddy.
Last night we pulled off the road at a Parking Bay and noticed a track leading out the back and a sign for Nuytsland Nature Reserve and the symbol for a gas cooker. We followed the road for about 10mins and found nothing and agreed to continue until we'd done 10km and turn around if we found nothing. At the 9.5km mark we stumbled across a huge cavern in the middle of the desert and got out to look. It was the famous Cocklebiddy Cave! This cave is famous for it holds one of the longest underwater passages in the world. A world record was set here in 1995 by Adelaide diver Chris Brown, who managed to reach a depth of 6.25km. There have been many cave diving expeditions here since the early 70s in an attempt to reach the end - but no one has yet seen it! The cave has tunnels 30m wide in places and two dry rock piles where divers camp overnight - and of course, it is pitch black. It was only a fluke that we chanced upon the cave. We were so excited to find it that we camped the night right above the open cut of the cave. It was quite an eerie experience as our presence awoke masses of small birds that came out of the cave and circled our vehicle until dark. We didn't hear a sound all night, no UFOs or animals or even trucks thundering along the Nullarbor.
Today, we passed the roadhouses of Cocklebiddy, Madura, Mundrabilla and Eucla. These places don't rate as townships or even settlements as they exist purely to pump fuel into vehicles doing the long haul across the Nullarbor. Fuel prices vary greatly along the Nullarbor; we paid 99c/litre for diesel at Balladonia at the start of the our trip and then filled up again at Mundrabilla for only 79c/litre. Petrol of course, is about 20c/litre more. I picked up a flyer from the Tourist Information Bureau called "The Nullarbor - More to see than just the road" and we've tried to find all the points of interest. Yesterday we saw a blowhole in Caiguna and then the Cocklebiddy Cave. Today, we saw Carmel the camel, Edna the goat, an emu and a pig at the Mundrabilla roadhouse animal farm. From Eucla, the trip improved significantly because the highway runs along the cliff tops of the Great Australian Bight and there are many turn-offs to good vantage points.
We crossed the WA/SA border at about 2pm and kept driving until just before the Aboriginal community of Yalata where we found an idyllic parking bay set off the road in a grove of stringy bark trees where we set up camp around 5pm. We got a bit confused about the time zone so it was something like that. Again, we had a free camp with no other campers or noisy vehicles. We were pleasantly surprised how few vehicles drove the Nullarbor at night. We heard probably one truck at about 5am and then the first car at about 6am. Someone even pulled into our campsite area for breakfast at 7am - they must have been driving through the night - crazy!
Yesterday I kept myself busy with the computer on my lap as David drove. I transferred all our fuel data to a spreadsheet and made some graphs and tables to show the variances and averages for our diesel consumption. We're running at about 6.19km/litre (19.05litres/100km) which is less than expected but things like towing a trailer, strong winds and lots of sand driving all chew the fuel. Oh, we've just passed Yalata - very exciting. Think I'll play some computer games. I don't sleep when we are travelling in the car but if you did you could easily sleep this whole trip across the Nullarbor and not miss anything!
We arrived in Ceduna - the end of the Nullarbor and took stock of where we were, where we were going and what we needed. Unfortunately, it is Thursday and all the Aboriginals have come into town to collect their dole cheques. They were drunk and arguing and it was not a nice place to be. Pity, because the town itself looks very pleasant.
We began to drive down the Eyre Penninsula (Ceduna - Point Lincoln 700km) and made our lunch stop at Smoky Bay. The highway bypasses all the little fishing towns so we were selective as to which towns we visited. We found the cliffs and views around the Streaky Bay area magnificent and found a great free beach camp where we fished and beachcombed before dinner (Chicken Korma and Jasmine rice).
Today we further explored the cliffs and views whilst making our way down the coast. On the other side of Sceale Bay where we camped last night we could see a magnificent headland - Point Labat. It is a conservation area reserved to protect the only Australian mainland colony of sea-lions. We spent at least an hour at the viewing platform watching the seals play and swim and sleep.
The brochures from the tourist office portray this area to be rich in fishing and good for windsurfing but so far we find the waters of the bays too protected from the wind and also too shallow. At each town we've enquired about where do the locals windsurf and we are told that no one goes in the water because of the sharks - 8ft bronze whalers and big white pointers … Ummmm.
The weather today is shocking, cloudy, gusty and cool. We took lots of photos yesterday but today have kept it to just the video. By the time we finally made it to Coffin Bay (50kms before Point Lincoln) on the western side of the penninsula, we were completely exhausted. Last night it didn't get dark until 9.30pm due to the time zone change and we stayed up until 1am. We're paying for it now though!
This morning, after a very late start, we went fishing in the hope of catching the area's prize fish … snapper! Unfortunately, it was quite windy, which the locals say put off the fish but we spent all day trying anyway. We both caught a few small fish but finally David pulled in a salmon. He wasn't quite sure at first what it was so we had to consult our fishing guide to identify it. The fishing laws here are quite stringent so we checked it was over the minimum legal size and put it in the fridge in the hope of catching more tomorrow.
Back at the caravan park we got talking to a large group of people who have been fishing and diving for lobsters and abalone. There are about 15 people in their group from Adelaide called the R & P Dive Club. They had 3 boats, 3 80 series landcruisers and one car and about 9 tents on their site plus a great kabana as their communal eating area. Today was their last day so they took out all the lobsters they'd put on ice and cooked them up in a big boiler to split amongst those who dived for them. We had to walk past their display of at least 20 enormous lobsters laid out on the grass ready to go in the boiler, which was a bit unfair. It was a shame we didn't get to meet them earlier and get a trip on the boats with them.
There was not enough fish in our catch today to make a full meal so we opened some blade steak from its cryovac and prepared a curry.
Finally, today the weather was perfect! The weather forecast was correct and we had a day of about 36 degrees and no wind. We had planned to go exploring in the Coffin Bay National Park and because we are now in South Australia our Annual WA Parks Pass is no longer valid. The South Australian National Parks are somewhat dearer than those in WA with a scale of camping rates varying from $5 to $15 per night. We figure we might as well have a powered site at a caravan park for $15. Anyway, this National Park is quite difficult to explore fully as it takes at least 10 hours to travel to the penninsula and back by 4WD. The access roads for the first 10kms are formed and suitable for 2WD vehicles but even so a 2WD cannot get down to the best beach in the area - Gunyah Beach. We drove out to Point Avoid and watched for fish from a magnificent lookout. David thought he could see a huge school of salmon and had been told by the locals that this was the hot spot. We got out the binnoculars and although I couldn't make out any salmon I did see two dolphins surfing the waves just off the shoreline. The beach below the cliff was just beautiful and so we rigged up our fishing gear, put on our cossies and walked down a steep staircase to the beach. David cast a lure only 5 times and pulled in an enormous salmon that brought lots of people running down the beach to have a look. We later recognised one of these people to be the fishing inspector! The minimum legal size for salmon here is 21cm and this one was about 80cm so we had nothing to worry about. We didn't catch anything more there and so moved on to Gunyah beach, which involved some interesting sand driving techniques. The sand dunes were so high it looked like we were in the desert and then the track opened up onto many kilometres of deserted beach except for one or two other fishermen. It was just one of those magic places. After some persistence, David managed to catch another good sized salmon, which satisfied our need for food for the next few days so we gave the remainder of our bait to one of the other fishermen.
We prepared the fish in a sweet and sour sauce with snow peas, carrot and capsicum and ate it as we watched a movie on our tiny television. The fisherman to whom we'd given the bait didn't come back until after midnight but he had done extremely well with our bait so he gave us one in return.
With our fridge full of fresh fish we couldn't justify staying another day to catch more fish because we simply couldn't eat it all before it spoiled. So, although the day was perfect again we packed up and started our drive back up the Eyre Penninsula through Port Lincoln and finally stopped for the night in Port Augusta. We did a little sight-seeing along the coastline from Port Lincoln to Port Augusta such as visiting the Boston Bay winery (where the wife told us they were previously from Warriewood). It was a hot day and we drove with the airconditioner on. When we finally pulled in to Port Augusta we were nearly bowled over the heat and decided to pay for a caravan park with a pool where we spent the late afternoon. We marinated our fresh fish in garlic, lemon juice, chilli, ginger, fish sauce and soy sauce while we played a few hands of Yahtzee. We started playing Yahtzee, Greed and Connect 4 in Windy Harbour WA near Pemberton and have been hooked ever since. We left home with these select games but haven't used them until now. I guess we really have slowed down. Anyway, the BBQ fish was exquisite and luckily we had just enough lettuce and tomato to scounge together a salad. It was 39 degrees during the day and it dropped to only 34 degrees at night. It was such a hot night we slept with the car wide open but there was such a strong breeze that it almost blew our car over (well, I said almost).
This morning we awoke quite early as it was still very hot. We made a quike get away and headed towards Adelaide. We decided to drive through the Clare Valley wine region and bought a few bottles from the Skilladgee Winery in Seven Hills. Arriving in Adelaide around lunch time we found the windsurfing locations and checked into the West Beach caravan park which is midway between Glenelg Beach and Henley Beach and seems so nice we might stay a few more days yet. We dropped into the Sanderson office to collect our email and we should be updating the website from there tomorrow.