Nights 236 - 256; Perth and Margies

NIGHT   236  -  MOORE RIVER BRIDGE REST AREA.

That we are staying in a roadside rest area when we are so near to several seaside towns says much about our impressions of the present surroundings. 

Earlier we swung through Cervantes and, although we love the name, a quick scan was all we needed – just more windswept sand-dunes and beaches full of reeking mountains of seaweed.

Next stop Lancelin, a surfing hotspot so they say.  Back Beach was pretty and we had a lovely swim but the surf was lame. (I’m beginning to think that actual surfable waves in Western Australia are a myth. It’s the big surfwear companies, isn’t it.  It’s all about selling product.  Just as very few people who buy clothes in a Kathmandu store ever require a Sherpa’s assistance , I believe very few people wearing Quicksilver/Billabong/Rip Curl gear in Western Australia need an actual surfboard.  It really is a pointless cultural artefact.  They may as well buy an inflatable air-mattress to sit on in the ocean.)

Leaving Lancelin we tried Ledge Point, about 20kms further towards Perth.  At Ledge Point we could smell the seaweed before we could see the town.  We negotiated the roundabout straight back out.

 

So, about 5kms off the coast, with several coastal towns nearby, we have elected to stay at a rest-stop alongside a busy road.  Here the river flows with a similar lack of surf but the grass is green and alive and free from the stench of decay. 

I give the Moore River Bridge Rest Area 2 stars out of 5.  The river has water and so do the toilets.

NIGHTS  237 – 243  -  BURNS BEACH CARAVAN PARK.

We stopped in at Yanchep on the way through to Perth, another seaside village and surfing hotspot that left us disappointed.  But enough of that. 

We felt sorry for Yanchep.  What was once a country surf town is now a vulgar knot of housing estates and tight circled roundabouts.  These estates go on for twenty or so kilometres, all with vapid names like Seaview Ridge or Ocean Breezes, and they spawn two-story beige brick boxes that chew up any possible yard space.  They are big and modern and lacking in anything idiosyncratic or interesting.  Then, suddenly, these beige boxes stop polluting the roadside, but only because last decade’s boxes have taken their place – with bricks noticeably redder and roofs less fashionably white, blue or black.  When combined with the proliferation of traffic lights and expanding low-rise shopping centres we knew we’d reached Perth’s far northern suburbs.

We’d also reached the need to make a decision.

There is no caravan park close to Perth that accepts dogs.   The Burns Beach Caravan Park is about 30kms away from Perth’s CBD and there were a few parks out east (in the ‘burbs) about the same distance away, and we knew nothing about any of them.  But we figured that the north side has Perth’s beaches and so, being the optimist I continue to be, the possibility of surfable waves continued to set our agenda.  We booked into The Burns Beach for two nights.

 

The two nights became four nights which became seven when we learned there was a ‘stay seven nights pay for six’ deal.  So our first week in Perth involved the daily commute out of Burns Beach toward whatever the weather and wind allowed.  For example:

·         Okay, I’ll get this out of the way first.  The surf was rubbish.  We checked it most every day, driving the strip along past Scarborough, along past Trigg, along past Cottesloe, and not once did my board get wet.  Our bodies occasionally got wet, sheltered from the wind behind the breakwall at Cottesloe or swimming at a couple of dog beaches we’d found, but the board stayed snug in its bag as I rejected the tepid shorebreaks on offer.  But Morrissey frolicked along various northside beaches and he’s such a beachy doofus that it always brightened up the day.

·         Shanzie loves a market and she read that one of Perth’s largest monthly markets was being held while we were nearby.  It was at Kalamundra, a town in the Perth Hills about an hour away.  If I’m honest, I don’t mind a market myself, especially when held in picturesque surrounds.  So we chugged our way up into the hills.  It was a good market, if a little too skewed toward Christmas which I think is ages away but probably isn’t.  It was very crowded, which freaked Mozza out.  I had to sit with him in the shade out of the way while Shan’ looked around and then she did the same.  He’s a good people dog though, enchanting everyone who passed by with his smiling face and panting tongue.  Shan bought a few things, I had a greasy  bacon and egg roll, Moz ate crap off the ground and all was right with the world again.

·         We had a day deep in the suburbs getting a part replaced on the ‘bago.  This part has been faulty since Townsville, where Winnebago said it wasn’t under warranty.  Some diligent work by Shana and a terse email or two convinced Winnebago that the part was indeed covered under warranty and they agree to replace it.  But we were a thousand kms from Townsville by then and the next Winnebago dealership was in Perth.  Given that the part wasn’t integral – the fault caused an annoying light to flash on and off throughout the night – we elected to wait until we reached Perth.  It took all day for us to get to the Winnebago dealership and for them to replace the part but it was worth it - it no longer feels like we are sleeping in a disco.

 

·         People had told us that Perth’s city centre is a bit sterile and ‘lacks soul’.  I’m not sure I’d go that far but there isn’t much there to capture the imagination.  The malls are full of generic could-be-anywhere shops and there’s no real ‘city’ feel.  I don’t think it’s fair to make any sweeping appraisal though.  I think it could be a place that reveals itself over time.  The street that was built like old time London was kind of cool.

·         We decided that we were going to stay put for the day; that we didn’t want to pack everything up and spend hours in traffic again.  As bizarre as it sounds, we wanted a day off.  The day we chose was a Sunday.  It turned out to be the first Sunday of the month.  Or, to be even more precise, it was the first Sunday of Spring, which probably doesn’t mean too much to too many people.  It is, however, a highly significant day in Perth if you’re the type of person who desires to catch (gather) abalone. Now, we had a great seaview from the back of the ‘bago over the cliffs and across the ocean.  There was only a walking path between us and the drop into the water.  Every morning we pulled the curtains aside to embrace this view.  On this Sunday, however, when we pulled the curtains aside, we were confronted by people bustling along the path dressed in old, ill-fitting wetsuits, some with goggles and snorkel covering their faces as if in the water.  They rushed along just beyond our window carrying large sacks.  There were dozens of them.  At first we thought it was some weird charity event.   A fancy dress walk or something where this year’s theme was wetsuits or divers or things aquatic.  But getting up and looking over the edge of the cliffs revealed dozens more people in the water, all walking or wading or swimming along the edges of the rocks.  Most were in wetsuits but some had ordinary street clothes on, sodden and wet.  Again, all had sacks.

By asking around we discovered that the wet and the wetsuited were collecting abalone for the first time since last December.  It was part of an annual abalone frenzy generated by strict regulations.  These regulations allow 20 abalone per person, but they can only be collected between the hours of 7 – 8 am on five consecutive Sundays, beginning on the first Sunday in Spring, (which was today). That’s it.  Five hours over five weeks and then no more legal abalone until next year. We awoke nearer to 8am when it was almost over.  People were scurrying in and around the rocks and filling bags, shouting to each other and at each other.  Whole families lined the beaches and scoured through crags – grandmas and grandpas with sacks, toddlers with sacks, teens with sacks, mums, dads, aunties, etc, all with sacks weighted down and seeking more.  Then 8am arrived and everybody exited the water. By 8:05 there wasn’t a wetsuit or an abalone sack to be seen.

We give the Burn’s Beach Caravan Park 3 stars out of 5.  We had a grass site which at times felt like we were poked into a paddock but it had fantastic views.  The toilets were a hike away though and dingy.  The café next door had curly fries that I fell in love with and can still taste now.

NIGHT  244  -  JULIENNE’S HOUSE, CHIDLOW.

Chidlow is another pretty ‘mountain’ town high in the Perth hills.  Julienne and Shana read for their PhDs together at UQ.  They hadn’t seen each other in over 10 years.  A catch-up was overdue.

So, in a rammed earth house beneath the trees we ate fresh salmon and discussed literary theory and the demise of left-wing politics.  We tipped a young boy’s car collection onto a rug and zoomed our favourites across the floor.  We slept in the ‘bago parked on the neighbours land because Julienne’s driveway was too steep. 

 

 

NIGHTS  245  -  247  -  AMY’S HOUSE, KELMSCOTT.

Kelmscott is a suburb like you’d find in any capital city.  It’s a long way from the city and the rent is comparatively cheap.  It’s not the prettiest of suburbs, or the most progressive, but it’s where Amy, Shana’s cousin, lives, and that was good enough for us.  

With Amy we got to do the tourist thing with someone to show us around.  She took us to Fremantle and we fell in love with it.  Fremantle is old and funky and vibrant and just a little seedy.  What more could you want in a city?  We drank cider surrounded by retro chairs and water views; we went to Freo jail and took a tour with an ex-correctional officer whose humour was as dark and scary as any of the cells; and we balanced out healthy food with unhealthy treats at the weekly farmer’s market.  We then went to Kings Park where Amy and Shana struck modelling poses against the magnificent backdrop of Perth’s cityscape.  We wandered the botanical gardens, Shana and Amy dissecting the various weddings we were witness to.  We then went home, sat on the back deck, and continued drinking cider while dismantling and reconstructing family history.  I was happy.  I cadged the occasional cigarette.

 

 The next day it was back to Freo again, lazing on a southside dog beach, messing about and getting burned.  The water was cool and clear, unlike our heads after a night on the slops. 

 

It was a busy two days (and three nights).  Thanks Amy and Ash for being tour guides.

 

NIGHT  248 -  LAKE CLIFTON CARAVAN PARK

Today was Remembrance Day but we didn’t realise it.  It was while we were in Woolworths that it became apparent.

 We were pushing our trolley along the cold foods aisle when a voice came over the loudspeaker, first reciting the ANZAC ode and then requesting a minutes silence. Everybody stopped in the middle of what they were doing.  There were three other trolleys in our aisle and, in the act of being respectful and silent, the scene looked like something from a movie where everything becomes somehow frozen in time.  Some people were facing the shelves, others stood behind their trolleys.  I was half into the butter fridge when the Last Post sounded, allowing myself only to straighten up but not move. Shana was stuck reading the labels of dips.  For a minute the air settled cold around us and the only sound was the whir of the fridge motor.  Then the loudspeaker said ‘thank you’ and, as if everyone had suddenly defrosted, we all started moving about again, taking up our conversations where we left them.

Shopping done, we’d yet to decide where we were going.  We’d joked with Amy and Ash that we didn’t always have plans and how liberating that could be but the day proved otherwise.  Sometimes not having plans is a pain in the arse.

Our original idea was to go to Rockingham but it seemed too close so we opted for Mandurah instead.  Mandurah looked beautiful with its bridge over the flatwater and it was there we did our shopping.  Alas, no dog friendly places existed anywhere near anything nice, so we kept going.  We never doubted that we’d find something.  Congratulating ourselves for our spontaneity a search on Wikicamps revealed that the Miami Caravan Park was nearby, and it received good reviews.  We smiled to each other across the cab. 

But the Miami Beach Caravan Park was having a tree-lopping day.  We pulled in behind a large tip-truck.  Up in the tree-canopy men with chainsaws and safety caps were sawing through large branches while men below collected and ground the branches into woodchips.  The chainsaw shrieked and whined and the chipper growled and crunched and noise layered upon noise and it was exactly what we didn’t need after a weekend of alcoholic excess.  We reversed out and drove on. Aimlessly.  A bit less sure.

A sign along the highway directed us towards the Dawesville Caravan Park.  Demonstrating admirable assertiveness I wheeled in without even consulting Wikicamps (or Shana).  From the entrance all we could see were very old caravans with fibro annexes, their wheels removed, axles now resting up on bricks. It indicated a park full of permanents and semi-permanents.  A woman met us at the office, her body openly losing a battle with hay fever.  Her red, puffy eyes could hardly see and her nose leaked continuously.  She told us she’d locked herself out of the office.  She wasn’t really sure how.  “Find the space you want” she sniffled “the hubby will come and collect the money later.  There’s a grass site and concrete slab.  Take your pick”. 

The grass site had a woman lying next to it, an empty four pack of Bacardi Breezers beside her.  The concrete slab was cracked, uneven and across the road from the woman.  Beside it sprawled a young guy on an old weather-beaten lounge outside his annex, a cigarette in his mouth and an overflowing ashtray on the ground beside him.  Although this reads like cheap characterisation I assure you it was real.  And they seemed to be having a conversation, shouting their sentences across the road. We drove between them.

Then around a loop and straight back out the gate.

We didn’t even stop to tell the woman we weren’t going to stay.

The Lake Clifton Caravan Park is rural and serene.  It could even be described as boring.  We found it about 15kms further down the road.  There’s not many residents here.  There’s lots of vacant spaces, probably because the park is a tad pointless.  It provides no access to Lake Clifton but, if you park on one of the two sites up the hill down the back, you can glimpse Lake Clifton through the trees.  So that’s where we parked.  We stopped and glimpsed at Lake Clifton through our windows and waited for the darkness to tell us the day had ended.

 

We give the Lake Clifton Caravan Park 2 stars out of 5.  It was open, non-threatening, quiet and accepted dogs.

NIGHT  249  -  PINE TREES REST STOP, BETWEEN BUNBURY AND BUSSELTON.

 

 

This place came with a caveat that it is a known haunt where local crystal meth addicts stop and imbibe.  There was nobody there when we drove near though, so we wheeled in and ‘chanced our arm’.  During the late afternoon a Jucy van pulled in beside us, but it proved to be driven by French tourists rather than meth addicts.  Just on dark a rented Toyota Corolla with a fold out tent on roof-racks also wheeled in.  Two brawny guys got out and, although I was concerned about how they would both fit into a small fold out tent 2mtrs off the ground, I wasn’t concerned about their motives toward us or toward life in general.

There was no surf in Bunbury today.

I give the Pine Trees Rest Stop 1 star out of 5.  It has been crystal meth free for at least 1 day and counting.

NIGHT  250  -  FOUR SEASONS CARAVAN PARK, BUSSELTON.

250 nights on the road is something to celebrate and there is nothing that shouts celebration to us, confined as we are in a small space, more than these two words – ‘dog spa’.

That’s right, the Four Seasons Caravan Park is not only dog friendly, it houses one of the few dog spas in the world (as far as we know).  We know that Morrissey can’t really help it that he loves to smell disgusting. We know it’s not his fault that he seeks out the worst smelling places he can find and then rolls in them, over and over and over.  We know it, but we don’t really like it.  But fate has positioned us so that we can spend night 250 with a clean smelling dog.  Of course we accepted.

The dog spa cost eight bucks.  It was not well maintained, the water well holding the combined stench of a hundred filthy mutts that had gone before us, releasing a face-melting fug when the lid was lifted.   It worked okay though, with warmed water and a rich lather of bubbles.  It came with a bottle of shampoo and a separate conditioner, just like at the best salons.  Moz stood there, reluctantly compliant while Shanzie did all the work.  He spent the night smelling clean and fresh, (if still slightly damp).  It was nose-joy for an evening and, to set the bar even higher for night 300, I’m hoping to somehow retard his flatulence. 

 

We’d spent the day in Busselton.  Here an old man in bib and brace overalls barely covering his belly drove us to the end of the Southern Hemisphere’s longest jetty, the train clunking and jerking all the way.  There we took a tour below water-level, a teenage guide pointing out various fish and different types of coral.  We then rode the train back again, dismissing the romantic idea of walking back hand in hand while laughing and pointing toward dolphins just like they do on the front of the brochures.

 

We give the Four Seasons Caravan Park 2 stars out of 5.  There was nothing wrong with it but, besides the dog spa, it had little to recommend it either.

NIGHTS  251 & 252  -  CAVES CARAVAN PARK, YALLINGUP.

 

If ever you’ve wondered what impact the sport of surfing has had on society in general then Caves Caravan Park offers a clear example. 

The Caves Caravan Park is over 100 years old.  Not the buildings - they’re reasonably modern - but the park’s actual existence.  It is opposite to, and owned by, the very plush and exclusive Caves House, as it has always been.  Caves House was built to cater for the well-heeled and time-rich as a place to stay while journeying out to look at the many large caves in the area.   This was in the horse and cart days.  The Caves Caravan Park was originally cleared as the space allotted to the servants and staff who accompanied these idle rich.  At the time there was no thought of going to the beach just a kilometre away.  Why would anyone want to struggle down the cliffs to stand on a wind-blown stretch of reefs and sand?

 Over time the caves continued to be a popular tourist destination and the caravan park began catering to the middle classes who came to visit – those with a tent or a caravan and enough money to do the trip without being able to afford to stay in the mainhouse.  Still few people felt they needed to visit the oceanside.

Then, in the early 60s, surfing became popular and the beach became attractive and desirable, if only initially to the young and the radical.  But as the young and radical became older and established the sport exploded.  Surfing became the coolest of the cool and you didn’t necessarily have to be adept at it, or even to surf at all, to feel part of this new cool clique.  You could simply buy the lifestyle by living near the beach.

Now most people want to live near the beach.  In fact, the beach has come to symbolise freedom and fun and is a cornerstone of Australian identity.  In Australia, living near the beach is symbol of success, the closer the better.

And thus the poor old Caves Beach Caravan Park has become supplanted as a ‘go to’ place in the area.  Yallingup is now a famous surfing destination with a new and modern caravan park built a stone’s throw from the main reef break.  Only 1 kilometre from the same break, the Caves Beach Caravan Park is now considered too far away, too inconvenient.  It now has to accept dogs to attract patronage and we were thankful that it did.  For us dog owners, being allowed to camp so close to several quality breaks is a rare treat.

And, in another glorious piece of synchronicity, the break that was working the best while we were there – Rabbits – is right in front of the dog beach section of Yallingup.  I could (and did) surf the glassy little right hand beach barrels while Shana and Moz did what they do along the beach.  Two days in a row.  Happy times!

 

But one can’t surf all day (especially at an age when able to apply for pensioner’s insurance) so, after the morning surf, we took a day trip into Dunsborough and up to Cape Naturaliste lighthouse.  Dunsborough is a beautiful little town.  I often say “I could live here” about places I’m attracted to, but Shana rarely does.  She’s more discerning than I.  We both said it about Dunsborough though.  We even looked into real estate windows to compare house prices and in the local paper to find a job (Shana would get a job at a winery cellar door, I’d become a groundskeeper/handyman, possibly at the same winery).

 It still lingers as a strong desire within us.

We give the Caves Caravan Park 2 ½ stars out of 5.  It had an actual old school games room complete with pinnies and a space invader/pacman/galaxian sit down arcade table.  It had an ensuite on every site.  It also had magpies that swooped to protect their young and a rogue dugite that was known to sun itself along a main path, but these were both over the other side of the park and, whilst heeding the warnings we gave them little thought.

NIGHTS  253 – 256  -  MARGARET RIVER CARAVAN PARK

While writing for this blog a man has just been killed by a shark at Gracetown.  The news is tragic.  I feel for those left behind, especially his wife and kids.  If the attack had of occurred two weeks ago I doubt I’d feel so affected.  I’d have felt sad and a bit spooked, but I wouldn’t have the attachment to it that I do now.  That’s because exactly a week before the day of the attack I was surfing the same coastline, about 500mtr south of where the attack occurred.  So now in my mind I can see the break he was at; I can see where he would have been sitting in relation to the reefs and jutting rocks.  I can see Gracetown itself, the small cluster of houses cut into the hillside, the general store, the jetty and boat ramp, the bay, North Point, South Point, the petrol pumps with a hand-written sign saying they’d run out of diesel, the silver metal phonebox with the orange Telstra logo.  I can see the intersection to get to Lefties, turning left pass the small estate of new houses with no lawns, following the recently tarred road up over the rise and down into the carpark.  I can see the carpark, half-full on top of the headland, people sitting on their bonnets checking the several breaks visible from up there.  And mostly I can see the monument that has been erected at the top of the stairs that leads to Lefties.  It’s a monument where Shana and I stopped and reflected about how good life can be and how easily it can be taken from you.  The monument is a memorial to a fatal shark attack that occurred there 3 years ago.  It is lovingly crafted, incorporating a stone-walled shade shelter in the shape of a surfboard.  The monument mentioned in its carved epitaph, just as recent newsprint mentioned in this week’s paper, that the surfer died while doing something that he loved.  I get it.  The waves I caught around Gracetown where fun.  It is spring and the waves were small but they had surprising power. They drove me faster and harder than I thought they would.

It really is easy to fall in love with the surf along the Margaret River coastline.  But it’s a dangerous love, I’m sure we all realise that.

Because the Margaret River coastline is still remote.  It is untamed, wild and desolate.  Sharks live and hunt there.  It’s a well-known fact.  But, even so, many thousands of surfers can say what I’m about to say -  I’m so very thankful it wasn’t me. 

R.I.P.  Chris Boyd.

Nights 218 - 235; The Coral Coast part 2.

NIGHT  218  -  WHALEBONE BAY CAMPGROUND, DENHAM

I could be having writer’s déjà vu.

I want to start this section exactly the same way as I started the first section of the last blog entry.

Then I was referring to Exmouth, saying how you couldn’t go there by mistake as it was nowhere near anything else.  Well ditto for Denham.  Both towns exist at the end of an archipelago that juts out from the mainland into the Indian Ocean.  To get to both towns you have to go around a gulf and head north again, towards nothing other than a single town and its attractions.  The main attraction to head north to Exmouth was Ningaloo Reef.  It was worth the drive.  The main attraction to head towards Denham is Monkey Mia.  It could go either way.

On the way we stopped at Shell Beach.  Shell Beach doesn’t have sand.  Instead, where you’d expect sand to be, there are billions of tiny shells.  It’s bizarre and very cool.  Naturally Shana loved it.  She loves shells and she loves beaches.  Combining them as occurs at Shell Beach was almost more than she could process.  She laid in it and made shell angels with her arms and legs like people sometimes do in the snow.

 

Whalebone Bay is a National Parks campground just south of Denham.  You have to ring National Parks and book a site, there only being six available.  We were excited that we got one.  It’s rare that we can camp right on the beach owing to Morrissey being a dog and dogs being interpreted as the modern equivalent of the black plague. (The mindset is that he will somehow decimate the native wildlife just by his presence). 

We were the first people there and had our choice of the spots.  The first spot we parked in was perfect, but while walking around we found a better perfect spot soon after.   Then, just as we found it, we could see a car and caravan approaching in the distance.

Heading directly toward us.

We were afraid they’d try to gazump our more perfect perfect spot. 

A plan was quickly enacted.

Putting their bodies on the line, Shan and Moz occupied the space while I urged my middle-aged man legs to more rapidly negotiate the sand. It looked like being a race to the spot.  Once in the ‘bago I careened forward, recklessly disregarding sand humps and pot-holes, the other vehicle seemingly speeding up as if becoming aware it was in a race.   Calculating trajectories and distances I was confident of getting there first.  Probably.  It’d be close because the path I was taking was winding and the road went straight on.

Sometimes you have to fight for what you want.

But not this time.

 Luckily (for them) they chickened out, slowed down, and turned off up to the lookout. After giving the place a quick once-over, they drove sedately back out (retreated!).

The perfect spot was ours.

We were 5 mtrs from the water along two sides, with hard sand, flat, and tucked behind a headland away from the southerlies that hadn’t stopped blowing for the last two weeks.

 

We spent a fantastic day not catching fish and playing in the water.  Several cars appeared throughout the day but only one other camped for the night – a hired backpacker van that set up in our rejected second-to-perfect spot.  We waved across the distance, they waved back, and no other communication was needed. 

Nightfall came gently, the sun setting into the ocean.  A meal was prepared, bevvies consumed. 

Then the wind picked up and we thought we were going to die.

It was the strongest wind we’d encountered and it bludgeoned the van like a giant’s fist, over and over and over.  The van weighs almost 5 tonne and, while lying awake at 2am, it was continually hurled from side to side, rocking wildly on the suspension.  It sounds like overkill in the light of the day but we thought it was about to be over-turned.  The windows were rattling furiously, the hatches kept creeping opened so that wind whistled through and something was banging furiously somewhere outside. 

We’re thinking about having T-shirts printed saying ‘We survived a night at Whalebone Bay’.

We give The Whalebone Bay Campground 5 stars out of 5.  Maybe that will appease the wind gods.

NIGHTS  219, 220, 221 – MONKEY MIA RESORT.

What can I say?  Could anybody really travel around Australia without going to Monkey Mia?

 A few people had suggested to us that we needn’t go.  They said it was a long way out of the way and was over-hyped.  “Yeah” we said, “but…”  It’s a bit like Disneyland really.  Maybe the reality can never match the hype but the place has a quasi-mythical status.  I’ve harboured a desire to go there since I first heard about it and Shana was the same.

So we went and IT WAS BLOODY FANTASTIC!

Do believe the hype.

Firstly, and importantly given that the constant wind is driving me batty, Monkey Mia is on the east coast of the archipelago.  The howling onshores of the west coast were a lot less blustery at Monkey Mia.  It was windy still – the archipelago is only 25km wide - but way more tolerable.  So I was a lot happier in general.

Secondly, Monkey Mia is a good blend of wilderness and resort.  This is perhaps best summed up by discussing fish and chips. 

We had a brilliant meal of fish and chips on our last night.  We’d caught the fish ourselves – whiting.  It was easy to catch because the resort only takes up about 300mts of beach front.  Either side of it reverts back to wilderness.  So, 200mtrs past the end of the resort we discovered a sandflat where the biggest whiting I’ve ever seen lined up to strike at our bait – pippies we’d dug up earlier from the same beach.  We caught 14 whiting in two sessions on two afternoons.  Fresh and filleted and rolled in flour they tasted amazing.

But we didn’t have any spuds.  It didn’t matter.  A two minute walk to the bar and bistro and you could order a box of hot chips.  Shan took the walk and (after sneaking a quick pear cider as well) arrived with chips hot and crispy.  The wilderness fish and the resort chips complimented each other perfectly on the plate. 

What more could you want?

Except…maybe…

DOLPHINS.

 

You’d have to be a hard-hearted person to remain unmoved during dolphin feeding.  If you harbour ecological concerns about the welfare of the dolphins and the effects of the feedings then the pre-feeding talk soon allays those concerns.  These people care about and care for these dolphins.  And the dolphins cruise before you, less than a metre from your shins.  If you’re lucky there’ll be mothers with their babies.  If you’re lucky you’ll watch dolphins as they sleep before you, chase fish before you, play with each other before you and harass the human rangers.  Some people are chosen to feed them – we went a few times and never got chosen – but nobody is allowed to touch them, not even the rangers.  They have discovered that human diseases can be transferred to dolphins through touch.   The rangers keep a very vigilant eye on people going for a sneaky grapple.

And while the dolphins capture most of your heart, the pelicans capture the rest.   They waddle, old men with big bellies and stiffened legs, and complain until they receive a share of the feeding.  They strut the foreshore and weave in the water among the dolphins.  Meal over, they collapse onto the sand in a feathered white ball.  With eyes closed they then completely ignore the goings on around them.  They truly are the grandfathers of the beach.

 

We stayed for three days.  We’d have happily stayed many days longer. 

We give the Monkey Mia Resort 4 7/8 stars out of 5.  They lose 1/8 owing to the massive emu that wanders the place without fear.  It starts off being an eye-popping experience and you rush for the camera as it sticks its head into somebodies tent.  After half an hour though you see it more as the world’s biggest seagull, constantly scavenging through peoples things and having to be shooed away.

NIGHT  222  -  GALLENA BRIDGE REST AREA, NORTH WEST COASTAL HIGHWAY.

 The scenery changed today.  Since we first ventured into Exmouth we’ve seen nothing other than low coastal scrub.  It becomes monotonous.  As we drove further south wildflowers started to appear again alongside the road.  Eucalypts also re-appeared, adding an upper story to the view.  Then, through what was becoming a thickening eucalypt forest, there were flashes of something light yellow that we couldn’t fully discern. We wondered what it was for a kilometre or two then, as we came over a rise, it revealed itself to us - wheat fields stretching before us, over the hills and into the distance.  Coastal scrub had given way to eucalypt forest which had then given way to pastures full of honey coloured wheat.

 We didn’t expect it, and it saddened us a little.

It symbolises that the tropical part of our trip is over.

We give the Gallena Bridge Rest Area 2 stars out of five.  People who knew more than us sat outside wearing beekeeper type veiled hats to keep the flies at bay.  We got bits of leafy branch that we continually swatted in front of our faces.  Eventually we gave up, going inside watching black swans through the windows.

 

NIGHTS  223 – 225  -  MURCHESON RIVER CARAVAN PARK, KALBARRI.

We’d been told several times that we must go to Kalbarri.  We’d been told we must go to Kalbarri while watching crocodiles fight for food at Cahill’s Crossing; while discussing motorhome etiquette in a supermarket carpark at Kununnurra; while swimming in the ‘infinity pool’ at Lake Argyle; and while ignoring a yappy little Jack Russell in Exmouth.  In fact, just about everybody who’d already been up along the Western Australia coast recommended Kalbarri as a must see.  All I knew is that, according to the Surfing Western Australia website, it had ‘one of Australia’s heaviest left-hand point breaks’.  I wanted to see that.

But, for us, as much as anything, Kalbarri is the place where we nearly got fined $500.

You see, even though the wildflower season is almost over, the road into Kalbarri still put on quite a wildflower show.  On seeing a patch of several different flowers alongside the road Shana asked me to stop.  She got out and spent ten or so minutes collecting specimens.  She loves flowers and we often have a posy in the van somewhere.  We are respectful types and so she only gathered the flowers directly from the side of the road.  We think it discourteous to collect them from people’s private property or from national parks.  So, apart from now transporting hundreds of tiny black ants in the cabin with us, we drove away content (and naïve).

We found the caravan park we wanted, booked in, backed in, and set out our things.  Shan arranged the flowers in a vase (coffee cup) and then wanted to take a picture.  She tried several places outside the van, carrying the flowers around, trying to find a sunny place with a nice background.  That was when a grumpy voiced man approached her and said “You shouldn’t have those”.

At first he sounded like he was going to bawl her out.

“You’re not allowed to pick wildflowers” he continued, sounding authoritarian and offended.

“They were on the side of the road” Shan answered.

“Doesn’t matter.  (He almost spat that bit out).  There’s a five hundred dollar fine if you get caught”.

I was inside wondering who he was.  Shana later told me she was doing the same.  She didn’t know whether to be nice to him – maybe he was the guy who did the fining – or to tell him to mind his own business.  Of course she was nice to him.  That’s who Shan is.

“I didn’t know” she said, which was true.  We’d collected and read many information brochures on wildflowers and hadn’t once read that they couldn’t be picked.  He believed in what he was saying though.  He stood staunch and resolute.

“Well, you’ve done it now. (pause)  Not much you can do about it I guess. (pause)  I suggest you keep them out of sight.  (pause)  Unless you want to get fined that is”.

And then he was gone, his grumpy warning left hanging in the air. 

We couldn’t work out where he came from and didn’t know where he went.   Neither of us could really remember what he looked like.  We think that maybe he was the guy across the road and down one from us, but we couldn’t be sure.  We smiled at that guy anyway, but stayed well away.

 

Jaques Point (Jakes) was the left hand break I’d read about.  It was about 5 minutes away by Vespa. I know that because I rode there several times.  It was working though wind affected on the first day we got there – a large wave that hugged the rocks and required speed to avoid the close out sections.  I thought I’d give it a miss. I reasoned it would be better in the morning, when the wind would be less fierce.

It wasn’t.

Nor did it break again for the three days I was there.

I sat on the Vespa, quietly dejected.  It wasn’t all bad though.  I enjoyed zipping about town on the Vespa.  Motor scooters have the ability to make 60kph feel like 160 and, in my mind, I was topping 100mph as I rode along past the Kalbarri cliffs.

That’s a buzz in itself.

We give the Murcheson River Caravan Park 2 ½ stars out of 5.  Technological advancement seems low in the park. Pen and paper still rule here and wireless internet is the stuff of science fiction.  But Kalbarri is beautiful.  We’ve now been there and, like most people, recommend it (although Shana remains less convinced. She does rate the Gorges Café very highly though).

NIGHT  226  -  BATAVIA COAST CARAVAN PARK, GERALDTON

We drove by The Pink Lake between Kalbarri and Geraldton.  The place is visually disturbing – seeing it conjured up possible Beatles lyrics from their psychedelic period i.e. ‘imagine a lake like a strawberry milkshake, with water the colour of little girl’s rooms’ (to the tune of ‘Lucy in the Sky”).

The water really is pink.  It confuses the senses, especially when set against the blue sky.  Of course there’s a scientific reason why the water is pink.  It’s a chemical thing, and natural (if not normal). But I didn’t want to know the exact reason why really.  I just like to know that in Western Australia there’s a weird arsed lake with pink water.  And that I’ve seen it for myself.

 

It was then on to Geraldton, Western Australia’s equivalent of Coffs Harbour.

Or so we reckon.

I’ve said it before that there’s something about Coffs that I’ve never taken to.  Although I should like  Coffs because it has all the things I normally like – surf beaches and salt water and sunshine -  the place has a sprawling great ugliness. I want quaint seaside shanties and casual head-nods but at Coff’s I’m instead confronted with a procession of servos, shopping centres and double-story blond brick boxes.  

Anyway, Geraldton’s much like that also – it is heralded as the largest town between Perth and Darwin.

 I must admit this excited us a little.  Contradicting what I’ve just said (what else is new?) we’d anticipated a little shopping time.  There are things we want to get that have been unavailable to us since Darwin.  A service for the ‘bago is one of them.  Geraldton houses the first VW dealership this side of Darwin.  Camera gear is another.  I’m looking for a specialist camera shop.  There’s a certain lens I want to check out.  So, even though Geraldton has nowhere within a 15km radius that will accept dogs, we drove into town with high expectations – quickly shattered.

We arrived on a Sunday and Geraladton is completely closed on Sundays.  We passed three large shopping centres all of which were closed.  Even the supermarkets, which was a bummer as we’d purposely waited until Geraldton to restock, never in our wildest imaginations thinking that nothing would be open.  We’d just come from Kalbarri, Carnarvon, Exmouth and Denham, all towns vastly smaller than Geraldton, yet all of them having at least one supermarket open 7 days a week.  We made do, resourceful types that we are, because, like the continual existence of gravity, fast food places never falter.  I had a dodgy burger, Shan bought some dodgy pad thai and, shopping now done, we drove the 15kms back out of town to the Batavia Coast Caravan Park , which was at least 12km from the Batavia Coast.

I’m not going to say anything about the Batavia Coast Caravan Park.  As the old adage goes, if you’ve got nothing nice to say, then say nothing.

The Batavia Coast caravan park – nothing.

NIGHTS  227 & 228  -  DOUBLE BEACH CARAVAN PARK, CAPE BURNEY.

Cape Burney is about 15km south of Geraldton.  We’d booked the ‘bago in for a service but had to wait a couple of days.  I chose The Double Beach Caravan Park as the place wait in.  It was close to town and, theoretically, had some of the best surf in Geraldton. 

It’s a pretty name I reckon – ‘Double Beach’.  We love a beach so having two beaches must surely be a good thing.  The caravan park sits alongside the Greenough River and behind the ocean sand dunes.  The river doesn’t flow into the ocean anymore, instead a sandbar has formed which retards the water’s flow.  So, when walking the sandbar, there is the ocean beach on one side, and what is now like a lakeside beach on the other.  Hence double beach.

The ocean beach was nice.  There was no rideable surf (the wind continues to howl from about 10am every day) but, as I’ve now said about a few places, the potential was there.  But on the riverside beach there was a big sign warning against any contact with the water at all – no swimming, skiing or fishing.  It sounded pretty toxic to us and the water had a funny yellow look about it.  It was a good place to walk Moz though.

So we waited in the wind, neither fishing nor surfing, until our trusty vee dub received the attention it deserved.  Then back to the Double Beach for another night.

 

I give the Double Beach Caravan Park a different score than does Shana.  I didn’t mind it and give it 2 ½ stars.  Shana, on the other hand, really didn’t like it.  She thought it was seedy and grotty, with trapped birds in cages and a distinct lack of friendliness.  She gave it 1 star for the brightly coloured bathroom doors. 

 

 

NIGHT  229  -  FLAT ROCK BEACH, BETWEEN GERALTON & DONGARA

This was a dodgy free camp, and a fantastic one at that.  We are back on the surf trail and my internet research keeps taking us to out of the way places.  There’s great surfing footage of Flat Rock on YouTube.  It’s a rock shelf that throws out A frames that hollow out as they run across the reef.  It’s also a lovely beachside spot, with rock pools and sand dunes and a decked area to sit on and watch the sunset. (It also has  lots of flies).

 

I met some locals and, as the wind had died down briefly, went with them for a surf.  Shana and Moz went for a swim and walked the beach. Moz, however, ate something off the beach that disagreed with him.  As dogs then do, he went off seeking grass to help him to throw up.  All the grass he found had seed heads on it, being spring and all (this will be important later).  When I came back in - all chat and exuberance from a morning surf - Moz was retching in the carpark, a very concerned Shana watching over him.

He seemed to get better as the afternoon progressed.

The next morning the wind was howling and the surf was flat.

Absolutely lying through my teeth I give Flat Rock ½ star out of 5.  You’re not supposed to camp there so I don’t want to encourage anybody.

CLIFF HEAD NORTH REST AREA, INDIAN OCEAN HIGHWAY.

Don’t worry about the Cliff Head rest area.  It’s a place to park.  Some people may love it because, being a series of inter-connected dirt roads running alongside the beach, there are many places to camp.  The beach is all seaweed though, and smells terrible.  We stopped there, we camped, we kept our windows closed.

 

Of more interest is the town of Dongara, which we stopped in at on the way.  It has a gorgeous main street, lined by hundred year old figs that overhang the road and footpath.  We did more shopping here than in bloody Geraldton.  It had a large and well-stocked op shop and a surf shop with discounted winter gear, which suited me perfectly as I hadn’t packed well for warmth.

 A half-price hoodie later and we were headed for a coffee shop that Shan had read about – Starfish at South Beach.  The beach was (again…still…for fuck’s sake…) like a wind tunnel but the food, coffee and service were all good.

In fact, Dongara has been out favourite little place since Agnes Waters in Queensland.  That probably says as much about what we are used to as it does about what we enjoy.  Still, we recommend you go there.  It’ll make you smile.

We give Cliff Head Rest Area 1 ½ stars out of 5.  It’s free and legal and has a toilet.

NIGHTS  231 & 232  -  UN-NAMED BAY, GREEN HEAD.

My desire to check out recommended surf spots lead us along another dirt road, and into another beautiful piece of WA coastline that we would have missed otherwise.  We were looking for Point Louise, a surf break near Green Head.  Again when we found it the wind was playing chaos with the tiny waves but, by following a few more dirt roads, we came across a bay sheltered from the wind.  We don’t know its name but as we pulled up a dolphin was catching fish 2 mtrs from the shore.

There were no ‘no camping’ signs to be seen.  We interpreted this to mean ‘enjoy camping here – go play with the dolphin’. 

Occasionally people drove past – utes mostly with long fishing rods tied like trophies across the cabin – but nobody else stopped.  That suited us.  The wind died down and, glory be, stayed away all day.  It felt like we’d won the lottery.  We walked around the rocks during low tide and found oysters clinging in clumps.  We got our oyster knife and pried them loose, taking turns at throwing them down our throats while we stood knee deep in the ocean. 

The sun shone and we read and swam and felt like we were on a deserted island (until the next ute went past anyway).  It was truly idyllic.

 

Except that Morrissey wasn’t well.  He seemed to have something caught in his throat.  All afternoon and into the night he sought grass to eat to make himself throw up, which he did several times.  Eventually he went to sleep but we could hear him breathing.  It wasn’t him snoring – he’s a terrible snorer – but there was a rasp present in every breath he took.

We hadn’t intended camping in Un-named Bay another night.  We thought we were going to head further down the coast, towards Perth.  Instead, the next morning, we drove 100 kms back in the direction we’d just come; back to Dongara to take Moz to the vet.

Moz had grass seeds caught in his tonsils.  The vet said that he could have eaten grass for ever without the seeds becoming dislodged.  They would then have become infected, causing major problems.  Moz needed to be sedated and the vet extracted the seeds out through his throat.  All this was before lunch.

After lunch, with a drowsy puppy confused in his kennel, we drove south again, past the stinking Cliff Head Rest Area and back to Un-named Bay.  The sun was back out and the wind was gentle and the next morning two dolphins came back to play. 

 

We loved Un-named Bay.  It was another unplanned and unexpected highlight on what has so far been a wind spoiled West Coast.

 

We give Un-named Bay 5 stars out of 5.  It was our own deserted island in the sunshine.

NIGHTS  233  - 235  -  JURIEN BAY CARAVAN PARK.

After 4 nights free camping we needed a shower. 

Jurien Bay is only 2 or so hours north of Perth, and was thirty minutes south of us.  It’s a popular holiday destination.  It’s only a small town but it has all the trappings.  It has a jetty that has nothing to do with boats or shipping.  It’s a new looking jetty and its sole purpose is to provide entertainment to holiday makers.  People gather in clusters to fish off the end and the more adventurous tourist jumps from the jetty into the water, climbing back up one of the several ladders to do it over again.  Parents and grandparents push the kids in one of the many brightly coloured ‘rides’ in the foreshore playground alongside the jetty.  Further along the foreshore there’s an adult playground; an outdoor gym with eight different apparatus to tone the muscles and get the heart pumping.  There’s a bike/ walking track that goes for 5 kilometers running parallel to the shore.  There’s water bubblers and garbage bins wherever you look and free dog-poo bags hanging off posts positioned every 500 mtrs or so.

 

 

It’s pretty flash.

And the caravan park is right there, in the centre of everything.  AND IT ACCEPTS DOGS.

Book us in baby. 

We paid for three days and then went to the café next door where the curly fries taste like dessert.  The wind is back though, and the fishing sucks, little puffer fish attacking the bait before anything more desirable has a chance to realise it’s there.  I caught 8 puffer fish in half an hour before I threw them the bait and gave up.  Other than that, though, Jurien Bay is a pretty swanky town for thirty bucks a night.

 

We give the Jurien Bay Caravan Park 4 ½ stars out of 5.  Having a dog friendly park in the centre of town is rare; having one that sells curly fries even rarer.  It is a thing to be cherished.