Epic Roadtrip Leg 4.1: Welcome to the West

5th May

After getting my car fixed (again!) it was time to hit the road. It had been nice to spend a few days in a real bed but I was quite ready to get going and go exploring again while keeping my fingers crossed that I would not breakdown again. I can tell you, having finished this leg, that I did not breakdown and I had an epic adventure and hence the need to split the Leg 4 blog into two parts. I did, however, have another catastrophe but I'll get to that.

I left Salmon Gums late afternoon on Tuesday 5th May heading towards the south coast. I parked up in a pine forest perfectly positioned to enter Cape le Grand National Park early the next day.

Day 1:

Cape Le Grand National Park

I drove through the park to the coast where I watched the sunrise behind me before eating my breakfast. I met a ranger who accused of me sleeping in the car park without paying. I told him I hadn't and that he was quite welcome to feel the hot bonnet if he wished. He seemed satisfied and buggered off.

Back on the south coast

Frenchmans Peak

The sun illuminated my first destination, Frenchmans Peak, which looked extremely odd. It looked like it was an enormous smurf hat. It had this overhanging bit that I couldn't figure out what it could be.

Smurfs

Ready for the hike

As I got closer it seemed like someone had plonked a massive curved rock on top of the mountain. From some angles it looked like an enormous handle you could pick the mountain up with.

Nice view

I climbed to the top to find that the 'handle' was a huge arch. It was massive. I couldn't find an angle to show off the real scale in a picture but you could fit a multi-story car park in here (which would have saved me the climb.) It was very steep so it was a lot of effort first thing in the morning.

Window on the world

This was taller than me!

I met a couple of other backpackers in here whilst I was waiting for a rain shower to pass. I can't remember what their names were or where they were from (I should have written this entry earlier!)

The arch

At the top

Beaches!

The plan was to spend the rest of the day at the beach but it was a little wet and a little cold and although the water looks quite inviting, I really wasn't keen. This whistling rock was pretty cool though. It was surprisingly loud, not that you can here it in this photo...

Whistling rock

I explored the park a bit more and visited a few more beaches but the weather really wasn't playing ball so I drove back to Esperance. There were a few things I was planning to do there. Some beaches but again, not as pleasant as I'd hoped, a fully recreated stonehenge but I've seen the real one and a pink lake that was no longer pink. I decided to cut my loses and move on.

Where's the sun gone

Day 2:

I spent the night in a free rest stop just outside Ravensthorpe where I had a bacon and egg butty before heading to Hyden.

The start of wave rock

This is somewhere I have always wanted to come to for as long as I have been planning to come to Australia. There is a picture of my Nana stood in front of Wave Rock that I have always wanted to emulate. I parked in the free car park a 10 minute walk from the rock to avoid the $10 entrance fee. I walked past a dam that collects all the water that runs off the top of rock.

The dam

The view from the top

Wave rock

This thing was mightily impressive. I was expecting it to be large but this was huge and really imposing. Its a really unusual rock formation that I don't think exists anywhere else in the world on this scale. It was formed but water slowly flowing over the top when it rains. That process has stopped now thanks to the dam. I thought about copying Nana's picture but in the end I thought 'screw it, I'm making my own picture' and I went surfing.

Surfing the wave!

Help, I'm being eaten

A little further down the track is the hippo rock which is a very accurate description. The flies at this point were becoming unbearable so I walked back to my car. This was quite a large detour for the coastal road so I spent the rest of the day driving back south. I drove through Lake Grace which is a tiny place and home to a very famous AFL player not that he was there or that I knew who he was!

Day 3:

The Stirling Ranges

It was another very early start to get to the Stirling Ranges National Park. Just as I was getting ready a van pulled up that had been parked in the rest spot next me overnight. There was an Australian guy in it who I said hello to. We had a brief conversation before I started the hike up Bluff Knoll which looked stunning in the early morning sun.

One of my absolute fav pics!

It was surprisingly chilly up the hill when I stopped for a rest. I didn't want to sit around too long. They actually got snow up here about a month after for the first time in 10 years. The Aussie guy I met at the car park stormed past me like some sort of machine. The view from the top was spectacular. There was a bit of mist creeping over the mountains which made for some amazing photos. I wished I had a proper camera to capture it.

Amazing!

As I was making my decent I got chatting to that Australian guy. I can't remember his name but he told me he worked on the mines near Kalgoolie and has a week off every few weeks so he would just travel around the area. He had done a few hikes in the park and recommended another one to me but I didn't fancy going on another big hike that day.

Well balenced

I did have another smaller hike I wanted to do though, in Porongurup National Park. On the way up I found these balancing boulders that seemed like they would roll away if you just gave them a little push. Seemingly not, I tried.

Roll away stone

The skywalk

The reason I wanted to do this hike was because they have attached a walkway to the side of a big rock at the top. To get to it you have to climb over some big boulders and down a crevice using the handles that have been drilled into the rocks.

Going for a climb

The view from the top was pretty cool or it would have been if the clouds hadn't rolled in. You could see all the way to Albany and the ocean beyond it. The was quite a scary drop below that you could see through the gaps in the floor.

The sea!

Don't fall!

I arrived in Albany late afternoon where I had a quick shower before heading to a free campsite I had found. Quite randomly the Australian guy I had been chatting too was also there so I said hello again and we talked for about an hour.

Day 4:

I had a lazy in Albany on this day. I spent most of the day in the library getting photos off my phone onto my laptop. Its a bit of a long process because the port is a bit broken and I have to download each photo individually. For this reason I don't do it all to often which was a massive mistake.

On the last day of this leg of the roadtrip my phone decided to go for a swim off the end of a waterfall. I did manage to find it but I wasn't able to save any of the photos. I've lost all my photos from the entire West Coast. All the way from Albany up to near Broome. That's the whole bloody coast! That's a lot of stuff that I've done and seen that now I will only have memories of in my head. Bloody fuming. The only photos I have is from the one picture a day I uploaded on to Facebook and a couple from my other cameras. I am still so very bitter about this.

Day 5

This was a day of big trees, not that have any photos of them. Ugh. From Albany I drove to Denmark (no not that one) where I picked a few tourist brochures for the area. I went to the Valley of the Giants where's a collection of massive trees. They've built a skywalk that's about 40m off the ground and the trees still tower above you. I did that walk but it was quite expensive for what it was.

Giant tree

After that I went to the giant tingle tree which is exactly what it says GIANT! The base is mostly hollow and you could have fit a small bus in there. It was bloody enormous!

That night I stayed in a rest area called Mt Burnside. They got that right too. The place looked like it been scorched pretty recently. There was still tape around some of the trees where they had blocked the road. The trees were all dead and black.

Day 6

Long way to fall

The next morning started with a terrifying experience. Around this area are a few trees that you can climb up. They've had poles hammered into the side of them making a ladder to a tree house at the top. They were used to find fires. To my surprise you can still climb these. I thought they'd be roped off for being too dangerous because they certainly seemed so. It was quite a climb and a big drop. There was a sort of mesh that started half way up but you could still easily fall down if one of the poles fell out. The poles were freezing too so my hands my numb by the time I made it too the top but I wasn't going to let go! It was a great view but the journey was the fun part of this thing.

I arrived in Augusta mid afternoon and bought my ticket to see the caves. There are lots of caves all over the Margeret River area. I bought a ticket to see three of them. The first cave I went too, Jewel Cave, is the biggest and most impressive and the only one I don't have any photos of! The main chamber must have been more than 50 metres high and there were loads of cool rock formations. I liked the cauliflower one the best. They were formed by the same process as stalagmites and stalactites but under water. The water has gone now leaving a wall of what looked like cauliflower.

Day 7:

Lake Cave

I went to Lake Cave the following morning and this time I took my camera to try and get better pictures in the dark. I met the tour guide at the bottom of a big hole in the ground. It was originally part of the cave before the roof collapsed. Around the cave entrance there were big stalactites that were dotted with white which we were informed were small spider webs. That's an awful lot of spiders in one space.

Hope they don't fall

See the white dots?

Into the unknown

We descended a set of steps and squeezed into a low and long cave that had a couple of feet of water at the bottom. The water level doesn't change in here even after heavy rain so everything is pretty constant. The most impressive thing in here is the suspended table. A huge stalactite has come down from the roof, met the water and spread out making and hanging platform. Its supposedly incredibly heavy and very old. Its one of only two known formations in the world and the only one open to the public. I don't have a picture though so you'll have to google it.

Lake Cave

Mammoth Cave

The last cave I went to was Mammoth Cave which was like a big tunnel, open at both ends. This was also impressive but having seen two amazing caves already but interest was waning slightly.

Windy walkway

Spot the small people

I left the caves and drove up the coast a bit more. I went to canal rocks which is sort of a natural canal in the rocks that's been caved out by the sea. The water was pretty rough so there were some mighty waves crashing over the rocks. I spent an hour here trying to get some good videos and photos of these epic waves spraying water 20 metres high but I lost all those pictures too.

Day 8:

I mostly had a lazy day today. I bought a new laptop as mine was dying so I spent most of the day trying to get everything off my old one and on to my new one. Then I bought a Maccas. I really did nothing at all.

Sunset in forests

Day 9:

LOOK WHO IT IS!

After spending a little time in Bunbury I met up with these two lovely people at the beach just before sunset. I first met Wannes and Nele in Ohakune where we worked together. I've since met them in Franz Josef and the first leg of my roadtrip from Sydney. It was great to see them again and catch up. Since I left them in Melbourne they have since been working on a winery near Adelaide before doing a huge roadtrip through the middle and down the west coast, the opposite of my plan.

Frisbee on the beach

We had a couple of beers and watched the sun set through a haze of smoke from a fire up the coast. Then we went to a rest stop to cook dinner and we swapped stories and tips on things to do on each of our onward journeys. It was great to catch up with these guys again and I hope to meet them again. Maybe even in Belgium. The next morning we parted ways, they went south and I went north to Perth.

Hazy sunset