Wednesday, Apr 25, 2012 at 17:26
Dirt Princess - Treat the coast around
the Blowholes and Quobba with great caution. It's not called King Wave country for nothing.
I remember seeing a story on the 'net (with pictures) quite a number of years ago.
A group of blokes went fishing near
the Blowholes. They had a Nissan Patrol wagon, and they parked the Nissan about 50M back from the
cliff top, and pulled out all their gear and went fishing off the
cliff top.
It was a 12M metre
cliff with a vertical face, and all flat country on the area where they were fishing from, and where the Nissan was parked.
Next thing, one bloke yells out - "RUN!" - as he spots a king wave rear up out of nowhere.
This king wave BROKE OVER THE TOP OF THE 12M
CLIFF!!! The blokes stated it was at least a 15M wave!
The "tsunami" of the volume of water from the wave, sent all the blokes sprawling and swimming for over 200M.
The wave knocked the Nissan Patrol over onto its side - and the blokes lost a lot of their gear that was lying on the ground around them and near the Nissan.
It was just the greatest piece of luck, that none of the blokes drowned. They had to organise help to right and recover the Nissan - and that episode put a far greater respect for that country into their minds, than they ever had before.
Even at
Kalbarri, about 15 mths ago, my brother and SIL were standing on some rocks, several metres above the sea just South of
Kalbarri - when a king wave clobbered them, and dragged them both down into the rocks. My brother is 70, and SIL is 64.
They suffered huge amounts of bruising, skin missing, wrenched joints - and they lost mobile phones, cameras, purse, wallet, the lot.
It wasn't a happy experience for them and they both nearly drowned. They aren't risk takers, and they are both very experienced outbackers and bushies.
FollowupID:
759412