Epic Roadtrip Leg 4.2: Into the Wild

15th May - 24th May

Day 10:

I spent the night in the closest free rest area to Perth that I could find. I drove through Freemantle into the northern end of the city and caught a train into the CBD. It didn't really know what to go and see. Perth doesn't exactly have any landmarks or touristy things. I went to a big cathedral which looked quite impressive. I don't have any photos because of that incident with the phone. I went to Perth Museum which I don't remember at all. I wasn't all that impressed by Perth to be honest. Not that I expected to be. Its just another city, a bit like Adelaide. Maybe you have to live there to see the best of it.

Perth

That afternoon I went to Kings Park which is on a big hill just outside the city centre. This was the best bit of Perth I found. You could see a big part of the city from the top of the hill. You could see the CBD and right across the Swan river to the other side of the city. I went back to my car late afternoon praying that I hadn't got a parking ticket as I had parked in a Bunnings carpark (Aussie B&Q). Luckily I did not and I drove North once more.

Day 11:

Today was a wet day so I didn't do all that much. I can't really remember what I did. I had a bit of a drive but the main thing I do was The Pinnacles in Nambung National Park.

The Pinnacles

It was very wet so I didn't really get out of my car all too much but they have made a track through all the rocks so you can do a bit of a drive through tour. They don't really know how these have been formed but they are pretty cool. There's 1000s of them in this mini desert and some of them are quite large. I did get a couple of selfies next to the bigger ones but I lost of those photos!

The rest of the day didn't consist of too much. I drove further north and the rain got heavier. I got a free hot shower from somewhere to warm up a bit. Everything was getting a bit damp now too now that the rain was torrential.

Day 12:

I spent the day in Geraldton. The promenade area here was quite nice to walk down with a little viewing platform at the end. I was going to set off again early afternoon but I was enjoying doing nothing in particular.

Geraldton

There was a small museum that I spent a few hours in charging my laptop. I went for a run as there were some free showers in town. There's a memorial on top of a cliff to commemorate the loss of 645 sailors who died on the HMAS Sydney. I took a picture of the sign so that I could remember what it was about but obviously....

I stocked up on a few supplies as after Geraldton the towns got few and far between. Now I was truly heading into the wild.

Day 13:

Kalbarri National Park covers quite a large area. Along the coast I found some big red cliffs and impressive rock formations. These were cool but the best of the park was further inland where there were big gorges and vast areas of a deep red rock. The only picture I have of here was the compulsory tourist photo of the window which looks really cool.

Kalbarri

The flies here were beyond unbearable. It was like nothing I've experienced before. Each person would have about 50 buzzing around them and that's no exaggeration. They were in your eyes, in your ears and if you opened you're mouth at all then they would get in there too! I wore a tea towel like a cowboy as it was the only way I would be able to go and see stuff. Most people had fly nets over there heads.

I went to another part of the park where I did a hike down to a river. It was a lot of fun climbing over and under rocks on this track. I spent time trying to get pictures of me hidden in the rocks using a timer but that time was obviously wasted.

Day 14:

The biggest and most frustrating part of losing all of my pictures from the west coast was because of my day at Monkey Mia and the rest of Shark Bay. I had so many pictures and videos of dolphins and turtles. I'm gutted I don't have any more than just this one.

Dolphins

I had spent the night just outside the national park as the campsites were ridiculously expensive. I hadn't expected much from this day as a lot of people had said it was over priced and over rated. I arrived in time for the first feeding of the day. I waited with about 50 other people on the beach waiting for some dolphins to come in. I was told that sometimes there can be up to 300 people on the beach so I guess I was lucky it wasn't too busy. We didn't have to wait too long when a few dolphins came in.

The feeding started a few decades ago and since then the dolphins come in every morning for their breakfast and this made for massive tourism attraction. There's obvious consequences of this such as parents not teaching their young how to fish for themselves. For a long time now though the organisation that runs this attraction have been well aware and changed the way they do things to minimise the impact. They only feed the older dolphins that have got used to the beach as a source of food and they are only feed them a fifth of the food they need to consume in a day. I heard criticism of this tourist attraction but that sounds like they being responsible to me.

The rangers picked a few people out of the crowd to go into the water and feed the fish to the dolphins. They came up so close. It was amazing to see. There were three feedings throughout the morning so I went back for the second and third feeding and each time it was really cool to watch. Even outside feeding times dolphins would swim up and down the beach watching what was going on. Maybe in the height of tourist season this might not be such a good thing but to look up from my book every now and then to see a couple of dolphins popping their heads out of the water was amazing. I also spotted a turtle swimming underneath the little pier!

I made the most out the facilities at the beach resort before I left by grabbing myself a shower, charging everything up and doing my washing. On the way back to the highway I stopped off at shell beach which is a large beach with billions of tiny shells instead of sand. I stayed there to watch the sunset which was beautiful despite a bush load of backpackers rolling up. It was a really great day and stand out experience of my time in Australia.

Day 15:

Before I left Shark Bay I stopped off at Hamelin Pool to see the Stromatolites. They weren't all too spectacular but its pretty amazing that this form of life is the oldest on the planet, billions of years old. We are all descended for this little tower of algae.

I drove for a few hours up to Carnarvon. There wasn't too much to see here but I spent a couple of hours by the beach. Carmen, who I worked with in Franz Josef, had left here only a few days before I arrived. I wasn't able to get here in time and she must have passed me on a bus at some point.

Windy in Carnarvon

Day 16:

Another amazing day in Coral Bay. I arrived early just in time for a telephone interview. I had had a quick look for jobs whilst I was in Monkey Mia. It was only to see how much work was available anywhere between this side of Australia and Cairns. There wasn't much to be honest but one job caught my eye and looked like it could be good so I applied. They called the next day to arrange an interview and today I got the job. Not too bad really considering I wasn't even looking. I still had a few more days to go before my road trip would be on pause for a while.

Hello!

I congratulated myself and then jumped in the sea. Coral Bay looks spectacular. A few metres of golden beach to the turquoise waters and then the reef. Only about 50 metres from the beach is the spectacular Ningaloo Reef. I had come prepared with a snorkel and I went for a swim.

REEF!

Awesome

It was truly awesome. And FREE! I reckon this was better than the Great Barrier Reef. Just as diverse but without the crowds and without the price tag. The further out I got the water became clearer and the reef more colourful. It wasn't completely free of people so there were people around if I got in trouble for some reason. One random person shouted over to me 'there's a turtle over here' but it had gone by the time I got there. I went back out again after lunch. I couldn't resist. I was tempted to go further out to where you might spot a whale shark but I thought better of it.

Amazing!

Day 17:

I spent an uneasy night in a lay-by as I knew I wasn't allowed to be sleeping here. It was a really quite road and as I was away at dawn there was no problem. I stopped off in Exmouth for some breakie before continuing around the peninsular to Cape Range National Park. The Ningaloo Reef continued up the coast so I got my snorkel and went back in the sea.

Fishes under an oyster stack

I found some fishes hiding under an oyster stack which was cool. It was a bit wavy here and the reef wasn't so impressive so I moved on to Turquoise Bay. The reef was better here but there was a VERY strong current. If you enter the water down the beach a bit then it drags you over the reef before turning out to sea so as long as you swim in before the sand bank you're fine but it was a bit disconcerting.

I paid for a campsite that night in the park. It was only $10 so not so bad. I walked over to the beach to watch the sunset before turning in.

Sunset of the Indian Ocean

Day 18:

Today was largely a day of driving. I went up a steep hill to a lighthouse in the morning just outside of Exmouth to see the view but after that it was nowt but driving. I was making my way inland, directly east for about 7 hours with nothing to break up the journey. When I was nearing Tom Price I had two options. Take the highway route which is an extra 80km or take the much shorter dirt road. I decided I would take the dirt road which was mostly ok but it was quite corrugated in places. I had to slow down a bit which meant a could've just taken the long way round but never mind.

Australia's main roads

I stopped off in Tom Price for a little bit to stock up on a few things and drove for another half hour to a small rest stop. I attempted to cook a pizza on my BBQ oven thing but the bottom got burnt and the top quite soggy in the torrential rain that had started.

Day 19:

A new contender for the 'Best Thing on the West Coast' award is Karijini. I arrived early at Dales Gorge Campground to book my camping spot and get some information from the visitor centre. Then I drove round to the other side of the park and started the walk down to Handrail Pool. I walked down the gorge which was impressive enough but it became incredible as the path narrowed and I had to start paddling through water.

Bit of gorge walking

I knew I was going to get wet feet so I was prepared but I wasn't prepared for the how amazing it would be climbing through this gorge. The walls must be 40-50 metres on either side and the gap only a metre across in some places and then suddenly it opens out into a massive round pool. You can see the waterfall in the picture where I had to climb down from and a person to give you a sense of scale.

Handrail Pool

I was absolutely in awe of this place. The path carried on a little further. I left my bag and swam down a channel into another gorge where the is a rope stopping you going any further. It looked so inviting, like a water slide down the cascading waterfall.

I went back to the car to have a quick lunch before going to the second of these gorge walks in the area. I thought the first one was amazing but this was even better. It was even narrower, the walls were even higher and water was rushing a bit more. This one opened up into a smaller pool but it was no less impressive. I went for another swim in it and sat there for a little while. It was raining harder now and they say you shouldn't be in there when its raining.

I swim back to collect my bag but oh no...my phones gone flying, its landed in the stream and is now shooting straight off the waterfall and into the pool. FUCK!

I try diving for it to find it but no luck. A young couple come and help me try to find it but its just not happening. The three of us go back to our cars to get goggles and head back down the gorge to try to find it. The guy, somehow, finds it on the floor of the dark pool. There's now at least a small chance of saving my photos but they are all on the internal memory and not on an SD card. I put it in rice and hope for the best.

I drove back to the campsite down the dirt road which is literally falling apart in the heavy rain. I had to go round a 'Road Closed' sign. I had a very wet night in my car. Everything was damp by morning and it was still raining a little.

Dales Gorge

I went for a bit of a walk around Dales Gorge in the morning but it was getting a bit depressing in all this rain and I didn't fancy going for a swim in any of the pools so I left the park a little earlier than planned. The job that I've got isn't too far from here so I knew I would be able to come back in better weather.

Dales Gorge

The Gorge

I stopped at a roadhouse just out of the park for some fuel and a sausage roll and I tested my phone to see if it'll work and somehow it did! I was so happy but I turned it off and left it in the rice some more. I tried it again in Port Headland so I could check to see where I'm going and contact the person organising my job. This was a fail. It turned on but then the screen flickered and died. I've lost all my photos. I tried to have it repaired at a shop but they couldn't do it. I sent it away to a phone engineer and they couldn't do it either. They sent it back to me and it got lost in the post so now I have no phone and definitely no photos.

Anyway my time in Karijni was awesome despite the weather and ending badly. Now its time to head to Karratha for a job I plan to be in for at least 6 months.