Flies. The scourge of the Australian outdoors. And none as persistent as the sticky little bush fly! Here at yet another WA Rest Stop, they are driving us mad. We even have our special hat-flynets, but they still manage to crawl up under the net and worm their way into your eyes, ears and nose! As the sun sets, we break with our tradition of sipping on a beer outside the van to catch the last light on the red plains and head indoors behind the fly screens.
North-West Cape where Exmouth sits, was probably better known nationally in the 1960s and 70s when the controversy over the giant joint US-Australian communications base was at its height. Thirteen giant towers stand at the top of the cape. Visible from 30 kms off, they were once an important link in the US Navy’s global communications network. Largely obsolete today, they now just serve the Australian Navy’s Indian Ocean communication needs. Cape Range National Park covers much of the cape and it’s this that draws the thousands of tourists that are packed into Exmouth and the few camping grounds inside the park this last week of the WA school holidays.
Coral reefs line the western shores of the cape. Nothing on the scale of the Great Barrier Reef, but far more accessible, with the reefs within swimming distance from many of the beaches. Beautiful clear tropical lagoons are dotted along the 70 odd kms of the Park’s coast line. On shore, the red cliffs and gorges of the Cape Range bring the desert and the sea together. The eastern side of the range is less crowded and accessible only by fairly rough dirt roads. Well worth the drive though! We made the slow climb up the eastern side late in the day and were treated to the colours and shadows of the last of the afternoon light. Not the Grand Canyon, but with the sea as a distant backdrop, mighty impressive none the less.
It might have been the teeming school holiday crowds, but the small beach resort of Coral Bay just south of Exmouth, was a bit too crowded for our liking and we’ve elected to spend another night on the road.
17 July - Quobba Station, 50 Km N of Carnarvon
WA really does stand for WINDY ALL the time. The further south we go, the windier it seems to get. It has blown a gale all day today. Our van is rocking in the strong off shore wind blowing over the desolate coastline just north of Carnarvon. Here, the Outback literally meets the sea. Parallel red dunes roll west from the desert, meeting the white sand dunes of the coast. Quobba Station is a sheep and beef property blessed with an 80 km shore front of rugged red cliffs, shell-littered, sandy beaches and some of the best blow holes around. The owners have branched out and created a caravan/cabin park here and a luxury “Eco-resort” 60 kms further north.
Facilities on Quobba are a bit basic, but the beach front location and the interesting station buildings make it well worth the 10 km of dirt road to get here. We had a wander around the old shearing sheds this morning. It was like walking back into the heady days when Australia ‘rode on the sheep’s back’. The words of “Click Go the Shears” ran through our heads. The original, belt-driven shearer’s stands were still in place, as were the sorting table and the giant wool press. The old shearers’ quarters are now rented out to travellers. Very basic! Just as they were in the 1950s. None of these buildings have been restored. They remain as they were when the last sheep went out the shoot.
We have been collecting shells along the way on this trip. The beach here has hundreds of clam shells - not the giant variety, but still a fairly large shell. The interesting thing about these shells is that the rocks of the red cliffs on the beach have these same shells imbedded in them. Lying on the beach are shells washed ashore today, now lying beside exactly the same variety of shells that were washed ashore on this same beach over a million years ago, now re-exposed as the sea erodes the rocks. We are reminded that Australia is indeed an ancient land!
18 July - Shark Bay
Just a few kilometres west of our beach camp site lies Dirk Hartog Island, named after the first European to arrive on Australian soil. It was 26 October 1616, 152 years before Cook landed on the east coast. Captain Hartog, a Dutchman, inscribed a pewter plate and nailed it to a post to record the event. 81 years later, his countryman William de Vlamingh revisited the site and replaced Hartog’s plate with another, taking the original back to Holland, where it is now on display in the Rijks Museum. Vlamingh’s plate is now in the WA Maritime museum in Fremantle.
One look at the coast line around here and it is clear why the Dutch quickly banged out an inscription and high tailed it back to the East Indies. Wind swept comes quickly to mind, followed immediately by desolate. We haven’t seen a tree higher that 1 metre for 500 kms! Feral goats seem to thrive but even the emus have to carry a packed lunch to survive. However, it must be noted that it has been overcast as well as windy all day today, so our perception has been blighted by the weather. On a better day, we might have regarded it as “the garden spot” of the whole of WA, as the Sundance Kid noted to Butch Cassidy.
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