Feeling refreshed after 3 nights in Kalbarri, we were ready to hit the road again. We said had a quick chat to our friends from the campsite north of Jurien Bay (young couple with the little boy and dog) who’d driven into the same caravan park the night before! Traded stories on where we’d been in between. As they have the dog they can’t go into any National Park, and I can’t help but to think that they are missing out on so much. Our best places have been deep in National Parks…

 

On our way out of town we saw a large black snake baking on the road, who obviously came out to wish us farewell! We hit the road and headed towards Monkey Mia. We stopped for lunch and swim at Shell Cove beach which had crystal clear water and the entire beach was made up of billions of white cockle shells. This was amazing and really whet the appetite for the next section!

On the way into Denham there is a turn off to Eagle Bluff and its well worth the detour. Its an elevated walkway along the coast which looks down onto the crystal waters below and is great for a spotting marine life. We saw sharks patrolling the waters as well as turtles, which was really cool! There’s not much to report on Denham, we only stopped for info on the National Park and got ice creams before heading to the homestead in  to air down the tyres for the sand driving ahead.

 Francois Peron National Park is in the middle of the Shark Bay Mrine Park and almost all the park is only accessible by 4wd. As such it’s fairly prisitine and there’s hardly anyone around. We arrived not too long before sundown and found the nearest campsite, Big Lagoon. It was nice but not the jaw dropping scenery we were expecting after the high of Shell Beach but it was home for the night and  stettled in just fine with a spot of fishing and aperitifs on the beach for sunset.

We were awoken early as the Europeans were packing up camp before light. They started their car but it took a few goes before it started! So dodgy… One guy ran past our tent to check the way out and then next thing their 4wd is stuck at the dead end next to us and has to do a 3 point turn to go back out the right way! By that point sleep was beyond us so we got up. We figured they must be part of the “2 minute noodle brigade” who do travel on the cheap, live off 2 minute noodles and try to get free camps by leaving before dawn….

We packed up in search of a better campsite and found it a Bottle Bay. Wet red sand dunes and give way to white sand and clear blue waters – it looks like heaven! We spent the day on the beach, swimming, sunning ourselves and some more fishing. Dave caught a heap of little snapper but nothing big enough to keep (they were about 25cm but have to be 50cm!). We also saw a little shark swim by and then a bit later while standing in the shallows beaches fishing it’s bigger brother swam past Dave! This one was bigger than me and certainly kept us from going too deep for the rest of the day! Went for a walk up the beach and took a few photos of the birds etc. also saw a turtle swimming just meters away which was cool!

On our way out we drove up to Cape Peron and Skipjack Point for some more marine sporting and we weren’t disappointed. We saw plenty of sharks, some of decent size, loads of turtles crushing in groups and about 6 manta rays! I did my first spot of sand driving and drove the 40 Km’s back to the homestead, where we aired up for the sealed roads. We took a walk around the old homestead precinct, which which along with the National Park, was a working sheep station until 1991.  Looke fun he old shearers sheds and did a self guided tour, which was very informative. Then we went and jumped in the hot tub filled with water coming from the 540m drilled artesian bore, which is 40 degree water by the time it reaches the surface! About 2 degrees away from perfect spa action!

On our way out of the peninsula we stopped at Ocean Park and did a tour of their fish and shark tanks. It run by marine biologists and they take you for a personal tour which was excellent. We learnt a lot about the different species that inhabit Shark Bay. They do shark feeding demos, but unfortunately for us, Murray the giant Queensland Groper had died overnight and the sharks had had feeding frenzy so weren’t the slight bit interested in the food offering…

We stopped in and saw the stromatolites at Hamelin Pool on the way out. They have created a walkway out over the water so that you can view the different types. These rocklike formations are created by bluegreen algae and have been in existence for 3.5 billion years! They are responsible for producing oxygen which paved the way for multicellular life forms about 550 million years ago. Hamelin Pool is one of the few remaining places where the right conditions exist to maintain them. There not real active though, only growing a few millimeters per year.

After all thisexploring there wasnt too much daylight left so we found a council camp at Gladstone Jetty. Noting special but served its purpose and we set off early in the morning for Carnarvon for some supplies. We had been warmed about the dust and after Carnarvon we knew about it. Large dust clouds filled the air and made it hard to see at times! We turned off the main North West Highway thing towards Gnarloo etc and went to the blow holes at Quobba, unfortunately it wasn’t really blowing as the tide was wrong and the swell to big enough.

We checked out these old run down huts behind the dunes, which you can imagine groups of surfers shacking up for weeks at a time ! It was really windy and dusty so not very appealing  (especially in the wind sensitive penthouse!) so we went to the Quobba homestead to ask about conditions further up at Red bluff etc. Apparently it is pretty similar up there so we decided to keep driving.

Stay tuned for our next update from Coral Bay! (more pics here)

T x