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.

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

Stuck in the Gums

2nd - 5th May

I'm in a tiny place called Salmon Gums and I'm sat outside this pub and my car won't start. Its ticking over but not engaging. I can't tell you how pissed off I was. After only having the car back for a few weeks and its broken down on me again already. I'm in a tiny town of only a few buildings, not to mention its quite late on Saturday now so even if there is a mechanics its probably closing for the weekend very soon. ARRGH!

I grabbed two people passing by who I think were from somewhere in Eastern Europe and they had a look but they didn't seem to know much more than me. I went back to the pub that I thought was closed but was actually open. I can't remember the name of the woman I spoke to but she grabbed her husband, Mitch, to come have a look. He couldn't figure it out either and directed me around the corner to a mechanics which I was surprised to find was open. The mechanic said he would be round in the morning to have a look (yes on a Sunday!)

I went back to the pub I bought myself a well needed beer. There was nothing to do but wait until morning. The pub seemed like a very quiet place. It can't make much money but the owners didn't seem all too bothered about that. They didn't have much in the way of overheads so it just a little pension pot for them really. Apparently every so often they would close up shop, jump in the big RV that was parked outside and go away for a month. Simple life really. I got chatting to the owners who were a very nice couple. So nice in fact that when I said I'm sleeping in my car the woman wouldn't have a bar of it and said I could have one of the three motel rooms they have. She has a daughter traveling Europe and said that she hoped that someone would help her out in a similar situation. I offered to work for it and she said if it got busy enough I could help out but I probably wouldn't be needed.

The motel room was awesome after being in my car for so long. Like a proper hotel room with an ensuite. The going rate was $100 a night so it was a real gift! I stayed in the pub for a couple of hours buying beers so I could at least pay for it in some way.

Drinking with the owners

The mechanic came over the next day to have a look and towed me to his shop. He was open on Sunday as it had a lot of work on. There was some fault with the starter motor not sending a spark to the engine or something. He said he'd be a couple of days fixing it. The owners of the pub said I was welcome to stay which was really great. I bought one of their rather expensive pizzas that night. I struggled for cheap food as the only shop was at the petrol station and that only really had snacks.

The owners went away for the night on Monday and I had very little to do. I spent most of the day watching a marathon of The Walking Dead. The owners came back on Tuesday morning and it was starting to get awkward with me staying. The mechanic said it should be fixed that day but as it got into the afternoon I was really itching to get going. They wouldn't have asked me to leave but I think I was outstaying my welcome and I didn't want to pester the mechanic because I could see he was busy. I had packed my stuff and cleaned the room for them and around 5 o'clock the mechanic gave me a ring and said it was all done. Awesome I can go!

But even paying was an effort. The money dad had sent me hadn't cleared yet so I didn't have enough money to pay the $300 repair. I had my English bankcard but he needed cash and there's no ATM in town. I tried to use his computer to do a bank transfer but because it was an international transfer it was more of a faff and I couldn't get it to work. I had to go back to the pub to ask if they could do cash out over the bar. Luckily there had been someone drinking in there all afternoon so they did have enough cash for me. I probably had to pay extra in bank charges and a rubbish exchange rate but at least I could pay and finally leave town.

I thanked the owners over and over and told them they have really helped me out of a tight spot. They are a very generous couple and the whole breakdown experience could have been so much worse. I tried to see the positives like it wasn't too expensive to repair, I got a free room for a few days and I got to meet some real aussies in the true outback. That said, I would really like not to break down again!