Day 9 - Thur 28th May

Wild budgies!!  You wouldn’t believe it… it was not long ago that Dave and I were commenting on the fact that we had never seen budgies in the wild.  Well, that was rectified today…  Our second day of exploration started with a visit to Chinamans Pool… where we finally found something of beauty that Carnarvon has to offer.  It was a pretty spot along the Gascoyne where the tree-lined banks were alive with the sound of birds… green and yellow budgies included.   We even spotted some mulloway in close to the shore.  Carnarvon has redeemed itself ;)

Next on the list of attractions was the Space and Technology Museum.  Again, the massive satellite dish was something we would comment on every time we passed… now we can say we’ve been there… The museum was awesome and I recommend a visit if you’re in town.  The volunteers are pretty helpful, bursting full of knowledge they are only too happy to share.  One guy spent ages explaining the whole process of an Apollo space launch… I learned quite a bit in that talk alone.  A highlight of the museum is the launch simulation.  You sit (lying on your back actually) and it takes you through the first three minutes of pre-launch radio transmission.  Then you launch into space… the whole thing rocks and shudders and the view outside the window changes as you enter space…. It was VERY cool…

 The view inside the shuttle simulation:

Future astronaut?

Hmmm.... maybe Elton John's Rocket Man??

Aiden bearing up under all the weight...

Tomorrow we are heading up to Quobba Station to explore that area.  We are undecided yet if we touch base back in Carnarvon before heading to Waroora Wilderness Camp (just south of Coral Bay) so am likely not to have phone/internet service for a couple of days up to almost a week.  Not sure when the next blog post will be…

Day 8 - Wed 27th May continued...

We arrived in Carnarvon, set up camp, then hit the road to do some exploring.  By the way – we have been utilising WikiCamps a great deal to determine where we will camp most nights.  So far it has served us well, including the park we are in now.  Anyone coming through Carnarvon in the near future, we can recommend the Wintersun Caravan Park.

First point of exploration was the Carnarvon Heritage Drive that takes you past the 1 Mile Jetty out to Pelican Point then back through town to the mangroves and marina.  After some of the beautiful sites, particularly beaches, we have seen in the past week, Carnarvon was a bit ‘meh’ for us.  The dirty brown water, horrible brown sand just aren’t up to par with our obviously high expectations ;)

This is the mouth of the Gascoyne River... anyone know what the fences every 50m are for?

Day 8 - Wed 27th May

Unfortunately our time in Shark Bay came to an end… so I was determined to enjoy every last moment… First up, watching the sunrise from our campsite:

On the station property there is a lake with a local bird population.  Once the sun was up we headed there for some bird watching.  My favourite sounding bird so far is the Chiming Wedgebill.  Yep, sounds like a chime ;)  My least favourite would be the Bush Curlew.  I am sure they call it a Curlew because when you hear one it curls your toes… Well, we had a local male who made his racket all night trying to impress the girly Curlew who had just come back to town…

The lake was an absolute oasis…

Looking over the lake back to the station: 

After breakfast we hit the road for Carnarvon.  A few weeks back Geraldine posted a picture from the top of the White Bluff lookout so our curiosity had been tweaked… White Bluff is one of those hills we have driven past a million times and pondered what was up there… now we know… gnomes!

Today’s highlight came from a completely unexpected detour.  I had spotted the Gladstone Ruins and Gladstone camp in the map book and so we decided to head down the 7km track to check it out… and were blown away.  Apparently Gladstone used to be a port for moving wool between the north west and Perth.  There is a decrepit jetty still standing at the site.   It looks like a great spot to camp with the sites scattered all along the beach.  The camp host told us that morning there had been a dugong in the shallows stealing fish out of someone’s net.  We trekked along the groyne out to the jetty with our eyes peeled for a ‘black lump’ in the water, the tell tale sign of a dugong.  Unfortunately, no dugong sighting for us, however, we had two dolphins chasing fish along the jetty just up from where we were standing.  It pretty much made up for our lack of dolphin interaction yesterday at Monkey Mia ;) 

Looking back at the camp:

Day 7 – Tues 26th May

The only problem with staying down near Hamelin Pool is that it is quite a trek away from Denham and Monkey Mia.  We made plans the previous night to get up early and head out to Monkey Mia first thing to see the dolphins. Of course, Murphy’s Law comes into play and the only day that I have managed to sleep past 6am was this day… Sure enough, we woke up late and ended up leaving about an hour later than we should have… only to arrive at the beach to get a glimpse of a couple of dolphins before they turned tail and headed back out to sea with full bellies… DOH!

All was not lost.  We still managed to see a turtle bobbing around the jetty and enjoyed a coffee sitting on the foreshore of this gorgeous location.

Next, we debated about whether or not we had enough time to go exploring in the Francois Peron Nation Park (the northern most part of the Shark Bay area).  We ended up deciding on a quick trip into the base of the park to the Peron Homestead Historical Site… and were pleased we did.  The area was run as a sheep station over a period of time from the 1900s but because of the saltiness of the water and ground soil they were never really successful.  However, they have left behind a homestead well worth visiting.  First up there is a natural spa run off artesian water pumped up to the surface.  Apparently the water sits about 40 degrees C… it was a bit warm on the feet to start with but  we soon relaxed into it ;)

We then explored the old shearing shed and shearer’s quarters:

Dinner time:

Our decision to explore a bit further into the national park was made when we discovered a tyre pressure station at the start of the park… there was a special doovalacky (technical term because Dave is not here right now for me to ask) to release the pressure on the way in and then a compressor to pump up the tyre again as you leave…. Dave was pretty stoked about this…. Obviously a bloke thing…

Anyhow, we only dipped our feet into the national park by covering the 10km to the first spot called Big Lagoon.  Unfortunately the lagoon was nothing special but for us, the trip was worthwhile when we spotted this guy on the track:

 Neither Dave nor I had seen a Thorny Devil in the wild so we were a bit chuffed ;)

We left the national park and headed for Denham, stopping at a couple of lookouts along the coast… we found a "Thong Shack" at one spot:

Every now and then I manage to get a photo of all 3 smiling and looking at the camera at the same time...

A highlight of the day was a visit to the Ocean Aquarium.  I can definitely recommend this place for anyone with kids… or super geeks like us ;)  My new favourite marine animal is a Leopard Ray:

 I thought Aiden was being super brave staring into the eyes of this sea snake… I had already taken 3 steps back away from the tank ;)

We were fast approaching the end of a loooong day but we still had one more place on our itinerary, Shell Beach.  The beach here is made entirely of those cockle shells I mentioned earlier.

I finally made it into a photo:

 Then the rest got in on the action:

 Handstands on Shell Beach

 Photo bombed by two children…

It was so late in the day the sun was going down… so, of course we had to play with some silhouette shots…

Don’t ask me what Aiden is supposed to be…

Day 6 - Mon 25th May

We left Geraldton and headed for Shark Bay… one of those places we have driven past many times as we go to Coral Bay or Exmouth… but never actually stop at.  Our destination: Hamelin Station Stay located at the base of Hamelin Pool.  All I can say is WOW!  We loved the accommodation and would probably choose to stay there in the future when splitting the long drive to Coral Bay into two days.  It’s about 30km off the main highway… not a lot in the scheme of things when traveling in Australia ;)

After setting up camp we checked out the local stromatalites: 

 Apparently the water in Hamelin Pool is 2.5 times saltier than the ocean.  This means not much can survive there other than a special cockle shell.  These shells are tiny - up to 4000 of them in a square metre.  I don’t know what process occurs but they wash up on the beach then get compacted into a rock hard material, which, in the early days, was mined at a quarry and used as bricks for housing and other buildings.

Day 4/5 – Sat23th/Sun 24th May

We spent a couple of days in Geraldton doing mundane tasks… shopping, washing, etc.  Even on holiday the jobs never end…

Day 4

We have said all along that we would make up our plan as we go along... and today we exercised that ability.  After hearing about the Stockyard Gully Tunnel we decided to detour and check it out... and weren't we glad!

Here's the brochure blurb:

"During the latter part of the eighteenth century, the site was an important rest point for drovers moving stock along the Geraldton - Midland stock route.  The creek bed or gully near the inflow into the cave formed a natural 'stockyard' where stock could be held overnight."

Along the gully you come across a tunnel through the limestone.  It is about 100m long and Dave reckons 6-8m wide by 4-5m high.  Once you're 20m in, the tunnel snakes and is pitch black... it was very cool.  You walk all the way through and pop out into the gully at the other end.

I also really appreciated walking along the gully.  It reminded me of places we have explored over in Victoria.  It was green, there were loads of birds and a whole heap of feral bees, their hives were everywhere.  I was tempted to say "How's the serenity", although the non-stop, inane chatter of an 8 and 10 year old prevented that...

Walking through the gully:

Just before entering the cave/tunnel:

 Just inside:

Back out into the gully:

Stockyard Gully Reserve is only 15km inland from Green Head and we would recommend it to anyone passing by... although we would probably opt not to tow the camper in there next time.

Day 3

We left Lancelin and headed for the Pinnacles... with a slight detour to check out Wedge Island.  I had originally planned to camp at Wedge Island and only realised the day before we set off that you can't actually camp there... which is a real shame because it is a GORGEOUS spot.

We drove through the shanty town and found the track down to the beach... this is what greeted us:

...and no, I never expected we would take the camper onto the beach this trip ;)

The boys playing with the GoPro.  We have some good video but the file sizes are massive.  We need some software to edit the files before I can post any here on my blog.

Most of the houses/shacks look like this... I was just impressed with the 'Wedge Island Hilton' sign.  Dave and I were blown away by the sheer number of shacks here.

Next up was a visit to the Pinnacles...

This is supposed to be one of those clever perception photos... but I will call it a fail :(

Megan found a friend in the souvenir shop.  The lady behind the counter was awesome.  She gave us some advice about local attractions... one of which was the Stockyard Gully Reserve... our plan for day 4.

After a quick consultation of WikiCamps we headed for our first free camp... and were pleasantly surprised by our choice.  We stayed the night at Point Louise, also known as Billy Goat Bay.  The camp spot was just a large gravel car park overlooking an awesome bay.  Although the beach was quite weedy the bay was beautiful and there was still a good amount of that white sand on display.  The water was the calmest we've seen anywhere and crystal clear.  Would definitely give this spot a thumbs up to anyone heading north...

No, Aiden hasn't taken up drinking.... he did think he was pretty special holding my wine for me though...

At the beach directly in front of our camping spot, looking left.  Next few photos taken from up on top of the cliff.

Looking back down at our camp

Karate Kid x 3.  Notice how calm and relaxed Megan looks compared to the look of concentration on the boy's faces!

Another sunset selfie shot...