Day 11 – Sat 30th May

Today’s agenda included some more exploration of the coastline, with the destination being Red Bluff (camp ground between Quobba and Gnaraloo).  First stop, a surf spot called 'The Tombstones' (not sure why it is called that?).  It was going off!  There must have been 30 cars in the teeny tiny car park.  We reckon that most of the surfers must have come from Carnarvon for the day.  

We were back at our camp for lunch before hitting the local lagoon for a snorkel.  The snorkeling was amazing.  Crystal clear water, shallow reef in a protected bay… what more can you ask for?  We have been working hard on getting the kids into the snorkelling over the past few years and it is paying off.  We finally have both kids in the water with us for up to an hour… it’s a pretty big effort, especially for Megan.  The payoff… watching the joy on their faces when we relive the moment when all four of us are swimming after a turtle…

The Tombstones surf spot

Not sure if you can see the surfer

Red Bluff

Camp sites at Red Bluff

Snorkeling in the lagoon at 3 Mile Camp

Spot the sting ray

The sign of a perfect holiday destination...

Day 10 – Fri 29th May

Time to pack up and leave Carnarvon and head for Quobba. First stop, 70km north of Carnarvon, are the Quobba Blowholes.  On the day we saw them they were pretty impressive.  The coastline along the Quobba area is rugged and the ocean pounds the cliffs.   There is sad evidence everywhere along this coast of people lost to king waves.  Anyhow, back to the blowholes… there were two main holes next to each other, a smaller one that got up an impressive wooshing noise as the air is expelled in front of the water spout.  The second is a much larger hole that goes off less frequently but when it does a fair volume of water is expelled.  Aiden absolutely loved the blowholes… Megan stood about 20 paces away cringing… oh well, you can’t win them all…

From the blowholes we plodded our way up the coastline, stopping in at all the side detour tracks.  There was a nice monument and story dedicated to the HMAS Sydney.  Apparently in WWII there was a battle between the HMAS Sydney and the German vessel Kormoran.  All 645 sailors on board the Sydney were lost so the story from the Germans is considered uncertain…  The Kormoran also sank but a couple of life rafts managed to make it ashore further up toward Red Bluff.

We took the next detour track heading north expecting another ocean view over the cliffs, but were pleasantly surprised to stumble across Cape Cuvier, the Dampier Salt loading facility.  It was actually a pretty awesome panorama with the loading facility, ship at dock and another ship waiting just a bit further out.  I don’t know how the others felt but I was pretty chuffed with our view for lunch…

Finally, further up the main track, we reached Gnaraloo Station, our destination: 3 Mile Camp.  I will intercede here and add a little tip for new travellers like us.  We had been given the advice to listen to what the locals have to say and not other travellers.  Well, we learned that lesson today.  Ma and Pa in a caravan across from us in the park, with their shiny new Pajero that’s never been off road, who’s idea of ‘off road’ means you drive up to a maximum of 1km off the bitumen,  told us the road out to Gnaraloo was too corrugated and we shouldn’t go past Quobba with our camper.  Luckily for us, a local guy who works at the caravan park was willing to share some local knowledge and told us you could actually get a 2WD up to Gnaraloo.  We are so glad we didn’t listen to the other people or else we would have missed out on the awesomeness that is camping at Gnaraloo… So, moral of the story is… seek out the advice of the locals…

We loved staying at 3 Mile Camp.  Although we didn’t get a beach side camp spot we still enjoyed the surroundings.  My favourite… the open-air bathroom!  We learned a lesson about perspective here.  We had read on WikiCamps some miserable comments about how expensive it was to stay here considering the state of the facilities.  Bah Humbug I say… Yes, the roof was missing, but, the toilets were flushing!! Flushing toilets in a bush camp!! Unheard of!  AND they were spotless. AND most of all, we thought it was the coolest thing on earth to sit on the toilet and look up and see the stars and moon or the birds…  or to have an open-air shower.  Although we did learn the hard way that all four of us turning on our showers at the same time equals no pressure…

The view when sitting on the toilet... there were usually birds sitting on the pole...

Here are some photos of us exploring the beach where we camped.  Another cool thing was the fact that when you looked out to sea, on the left hand side there were people surfing on decent sized waves and then on the right hand side there is a protected lagoon where the snorkelling is amazing.  How often do you get people surfing and snorkelling simultaneously all within a short distance of each other?

More sunset shots...

Day 9 – Thur 28th May continued...

As I sat here working on my blog post Dave took the kids down to the 1 Mile Jetty for a spot of fishing.  And guess what… they caught something!  Apparently Megan was the star fisherwoman, catching the biggest fish of the day.  They caught a whole bunch of bream, none of which were of size.  However they did manage to catch four Skipjacks (we think that’s what they are??).  Dave even brought them home, filleted them and then cooked them up for dinner…

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: