Driving North along the west coast

In November 2008 (yes we have been slow posting to our blog..) we did our first long trip in Australia. To get a feel of distances we drove to Exmouth and back in a week (3400 km driving). This is a trip that deserves more time really, so we will have to come back. But it gave us a good feel what is there to see and how easy it is to do long distance trips here. It also shows that in a week with a lot of driving, you still only cover a very small part of Australia!

Our GPS track on the Australia Satellite image

First stop: Kalbarri
The first stretch of our trip was the drive to Kalbarri, a small village facing the Indian Ocean, 589 km north of Perth.

Indian Ocean view from Kalbarri

Kalbarri itself was not our main goal, but the Kalbarri National Park offers great views on the Murchinson river canyon, even through Nature's Window (if you do not sit in it to block the view). The wildflowers were still in season and added some nice colour to the scenery.

Nature's Window with Corine and Jurriaan blocking the view on Murchinson River Canyon

Wildflowers in the Kalbarri National Park

Second stop: Shark Bay World Heritage Site
On the highway from Kalbarri to Exmouth we turned off to visit the Shark Bay world heritage site, a great wilderness area with several spectacular sites to visit. One of the attarctions was Monkey Mia, where bottlenose dolphins come to shore to catch fish they get fed. This tradition started many years ago when fishermen threw fish waste over board. Dolphins stuck around, and people kept feeding them to the point that they forgot how to catch fish themselves. Now it is strickly regulated and only a small percenatge of the daily food intake is fed. This allowed us to stand in the water a metre away from dolphins. A bit touristy, but spectacular nonetheless.

A bottlenose dolphin catches his fish

North of Denham and Monkey Mia is the François Péron National Park, a sandy peninsula with beautifull coastlines. This was a good opportunity for a first test on the off road capabilities of our car. No recovery techniques were required, so he passed the test (for now). The reddish sand provided beautifull contrast with the turquois blue ocean, dark green bushes and aquamarine sky.

The colour spectrum of the François Péron National Park

Remote
After a day in the Francois Peron National Park in West Australia we arrive in the sleepy town of Denham, low on fuel, tyre pressure, food, water and sunscreen. No shortage of red dust though.

In the local petrol station we buy fuel, water, juice and ice cream. "Are you having a party?", asks the guy behind the counter. "Maybe a very small one", I reply. "Not for our standards, it isn't", he replies, and after a short pause he continues: "Not much is happening here".

Since we were looking for more food than just our ice cream, we were looking for a supermarket. Corine points to the local map and asks the guys what Murphy's market sells. "You don't want to know", the guys replies. After a short pause he confesses: "It is a junk yard".

...Luckily Denham was not as bad as it sounds: we found our supermarket where we stocked up for the 800km journey the next day to Exmouth....

Driving on
On our way out of the area we had to stop at Hamelin Pool, where Stromatolites are still thriving in a unique habitat of hyper saline water. Stromatolites a colonies of cyano bacteria, one of the oldest lifeforms on earth. Stromatolites feed on carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Billions of years ago this process may have provided in the oxygen we breathe now on earth. However, the stromatolites at Hamelin Pool are only 3000 years old. It is the largest population of stromatolites on the southern hemisphere.

Stromatolites at Hamelin Pool

Third stop: Ningaloo Reef and Cape Range national Park

Our journey continued to Exmouth, the gateway to Ningaloo Reef and Cape Range National Park. After a long drive, we camped just outside the entrance of Cape Range National Park. At night we wanted to spot turtles laying eggs on the beach. We drove to a beach entrance at no more than 20 km/h, because the road at night was littered with hundreds of Kangaroos. On the beach we found a quiet spot to wait for a turtle to come. Just when we were about to give up and started walking back we nearly stumbled on a turtle digging a hole. We hid ourselves behind a dune to avoid distracting her. The turtle was quite serious about her hole. After digging for a while she decided this was not "The Hole" and moved to a better spot to dig again. Very special to see, just us and this enormous animal. After an hour we gave up waiting for the right hole to see the eggs (this may take 6 hours).

The next morning we drove into the park. We stopped at Turquoise Bay to snorkel Ningaloo Reef. Beautifull pristine waters with nice coral heads to explore. We saw our first reef shark here.
Ningaloo offers many snorkel and dive spots, but on our short long-distance journey, we have only time for one. We will be back!

To avoid driving the same road back to Exmouth we liked to try an off road route along the coast to Coral Bay. And it provided another test for our car... The only hurdle was to cross Yardie Creek at low tide. A place were tourists have been known to require expensive towing assistance after a failed attempt.

The access track to the Yardie Creek crossing

We waited for the lowest tide and we walked, or actually, waded the crossing to see if ground was firm and flat. At the low tide point a Landcruiser came from the other side and crossed without a problem. We already heared from the locals how to do it, so we were confident that our car was up for it. And it was... Although it may not have liked the salt water on its chassis, but that is also part of the initiation.

The Yardie Creek crossing

The track to Coral Bay was sandy but firm so easy to continue. It offered beautifull views and many kangoroos stopped along to road to see who was passing by.

Kangaroos watching human wildlife

We also saw our first Emus. A mother with two chicks.

Emus in Cape Range National Park

On the way back: Geraldton
After a night in Coral Bay, we only had to drive back. We drove in one go to Geraldton, a medium size coastal town 424 km North of Perth. Geraldton has an interesting Maritime Museum where stories of Dutch shipwrecks of the 17th century were nicely told. Many did not make it to Indonesia. The story of the Batavia that shipwrecked on the Houtman Abrolhos islands was particulary interesting. It involved mutiny and murder. After months on the islands the remainer of the crew decided to build a small boat from the leftovers of the Batavia. In this boat they managed to sail in four weeks (!) to Batavia, some 3000 km.

The next day we reached Perth, looking back on an intense journey. We know we like to go back to many of the places we visited. We have a good feel of West-Australian distances now: they are large.