Our journey took us to Perth for a couple of days, where we stayed in Secret Harbour, a very rich area, almost impossible to find on the map. Where I got to drive a $250,000 Lexus, which has to be one of the smoothest things ever to drive; and to a water park which I found somewhat surreal. I've never been to a proper waterpark before. The UK is just too cold for that sort of thing. It was like going to a theme park, but everyone just wanders around in bikinis and swimwear, just sunbathing and having picnics where ever they fancied. It was a brilliant day though; water slide, after water slide, after swimming pool, after water slide. So much fun, and wandering around wearing nothing but swimwear wasn't so bad after a while.
Journeying north, the scenery starts to change again.Gone is any hint of the forests of the south, replaced by the stereotypical depiction of Australia; hot, sun-scorched, desert... well almost. That really hit in the north, this far south (despite the enormously long drives we were still only about halfway up the west coast) it was still deciding what it wanted to do.
You would get endless kilometers of coastal shrubs, still very green but no trees or anything growing very high. Interspersed with this you get sand dunes, just rising out of the green, until the sand becomes the dominant feature. As the landscape evolved it became nothing but sand again.
You could drive for hours seeing nothing but sand and scrub, and goats, and scrawny cows, just wandering where ever they wanted, so it seemed. These small herds, just sheltering under the poor excuses for trees at the sides of the road were small parts of much bigger herds, spread out over thousands of acres! Some were Western breeds, the type I was used to seeing back home. I definitely saw a few wandering herds of Herefords. Then others were more hump-backed, like you would associate with Africa or India, typically hot places.Now I'm really not doing a brilliant job of describing this experience. Imagine driving for hours. Straight, sandy roads, burning heat. I was travelling in little more than a bikini by this point. It was too hot for anything else.
We could drive drive for 8hrs a day and barely make it anywhere, on the map or in terms of finding anywhere interesting. All you're seeing by this point is barren scrub-land. The towns, even just a day north of Perth are generally tiny, little more than roadhouses. There's really nothing to see. We stopped over night in Geraldtown which was an actual town, but didn't find much there. By the time we reached Carnavon it was just dry. Dusty, sand-filled riverbeds, which they raced cars on; salt lakes and nothingness!
The place I really want to tell you about is the reason I would chose the West coast over the East coast. It may be obvious by now that I'm not so interested in the big touristy attractions like those the East coast is associated with but finding little gems like this one (and Esperance) just make the West all the more incredible in my opinion...
Just north of Carnavon there is a brown (place of interest) road sign that reads 'Blow holes', by 'just north' I do mean 50-80km, I forget exactly how far. Being of a meandering, exploratory mind, we followed it. It did lead on much further but we stopped at the blow holes, and upon reaching them, found a campsite.Well campsite is a bit of a stretch of the imagination. In the middle of the sand dunes there were, what I can only describe as a collection of old fisherman's
huts; corrugated tin huts, a bit
ramshackle and falling down.
And in amongst these huts there was a whole community living; some in the huts, some in campervans, some in tents, even a couple in a bus, just living here for months on end. With stalls selling books, jewellery and other random things, with the occasional traveler stumbling across them.
The situation of this little community couldn't have been more amazing. On the edge of a reef at the north end of Shark Bay (a fact which worried my mother). The reef formed a natural wall, safe guarding a small(ish) lagoon where there were sometimes dugongs and sea turtles but always tropical
reef fish. Calm water and beautiful white
sand beaches really did make this place
feel like paradise.
The blow holes themselves, just a little way from camp, out of the lagooned area, were like geysers of sea water, forced through holes in the rocks by incredibly strong and dangerous waves. Fishing up here not recommended as King Waves could easily sweep you off the rocks
Needless to say my days here were spent exploring rocks, getting doused in sea spray; snorkeling on tropical reefs; combing the beaches for bright and beautiful shells; BBQing and drinking beer with hippies; and even borrowing a paddle board to take out on the lagoon! So relaxed and beautiful.
Fantastic place! the only down side was the hour drive back into town every time we needed to replenish the ice in the Esky!
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