We have had a great couple of weeks! We’ve crossed into WA,
the state of Jack's dreams, and so far it is more than living up to them!
We
stayed at Port Lincoln National Park where we had a beautiful view over a quiet
bay. Next was Coffin Bay where we set up camp for a few days in the national
park and we pried some oysters off the rocks, which Jack cooked over the fire
and thoroughly enjoyed. The view from our camp was beautiful with white sand
and baby blue water. We had our first showers using a bucket of sea water
heated over the fire. The wind was freezing, but we felt nearly squeaky clean
after.
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| Coffin Bay Oysters |
We ended up staying on someone’s farm for the night (with
their permission, of course). There was a ring of rocks set up for a fire
already, except there was a big fat ugly lizard inside. We tapped a stick
behind him to try and get him to move but the lazy bugger wouldn’t budge. We
tapped him and physically pushed him across the ground but he refused to move a
leg. We gave up and built our own rock circle.
We checked out a sealion colony, from our view
on the top of the cliff they all looked dead. Streaky Bay was our next port of
call. We checked out Granites, a famous surf break, where the waves looked ok,
but the water looked too sharkey.
We stayed for a few nights at Perlubie beach, where we
camped right on the beach. It was a really nice spot which used to have horse
races on the beach, but now all that is left are the shelters, toilets and
stables. We donned shoes and gloves and waded out into the water to find some
razor fish (which look like big muscles but the meat is like a scallop). We
pulled over 20 out from the sand. Just before getting out of the water, I saw
one more, so I reached down to grab it, and it grabbed me back. I tried to run
out of the water but my croc was suctioned to the bottom so I ended up loosing
my balance and stepping back down and the crab bit my heel. Jack of course was
standing on the shore laughing his head off as I am standing with one foot in
the air screaming.
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| Mum, this is for you. Quite an interesting sight. |
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| First sunset over the water at Perlubie Beach. |
The northern point of Streaky Bay is called Point Brown, and
Jack’s Uncle Hammer had suggested we check it out. It was amazing, we set up
camp on the other side of the point amongst the sand dunes, looking out onto a
beautiful sleepy bay. We were visited by dophins and a seal. Here I enjoyed my
first uninterrupted sunset over the water, it was magical. We had roast chicken
cooked in the camp oven one night and Jack caught a bunch of whiting, which we
enjoyed panfried with butter with come cous cous the next. We were planning to
stay longer however the wind changed to onshore and we awoke to the smell of
decomposing seaweed.
We stopped in at Ceduna to do some shopping, which included
a toaster and a jaffel iron. We celebrated the two month mark at Cactus beach
with lots of jaffels filled with peanut butter, creamed corn and cheese (recipe
from Aunty Heather – if you haven’t tried it, you should!), and Jack had a
surf. After about 40 minutes a seal came by and it was as if there was some
unspoken code as everyone paddled in leaving Jack all alone.
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| Cactus |
The Nullarbor! It really lives up to its name: it means
tree-less. There was a whole lot of nothing, and a bit roadkill (including a
camel). We detoured off the highway and checked out the view; it took our
breaths away! The cliffs just dropped away a few meters from our feet to
crashing seas far below.
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| The Bite |
We soon (well, soon in these areas is a few hours drive,
just as ‘just round the corner’ means a couple hundred kilometers) approached
the boarder, and then we were in WA! The most noticeable difference was the petrol price which jumped up 40c.
We stopped a couple towns later (by town I mean a petrol
station) at a rest stop. We had some veges and steak and we had a good chat to
a man from Albany. It actually turns out that we had our clock wrong and we
were two hours ahead. So we actually ate dinner at 3:30. And went to bed at
6:30. No wonder why, when he came over to talk at about 4 (we thought it was
6), sounding surprised, he asked if we were about to have dinner. We said no,
we’ve just finished.
We decided to leave the highway and travel down to the coast
via the Balledonia track. About 160ks in, after numerous ruts and kilometers of
corrugations, we blew a tyre.
After our slight delay, we made it to the coast as the sun
was setting. We stayed at Alexander Bay. We had a yummy dinner of lamb with bushmans
spices, veges and pasta, and took a stroll to the beach where the yellow moon
had just risen over the water, it was beautiful.
So bloody hot. 45 is not a fun number. We drove onto the
beach, and now that it was daytime, we could see that the beach was even more
beautiful than we thought: sand as white as snow and as fine as cornflour,
water as clear as glass which transitioned from a stunning electric blue to a
deep dark blue, interspersed with small islands. We couldn’t get over just how
beautiful it was.
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| Alexander Bay, Esperance |
Jack had a fish but to no avail, I raged at the flies. We
decided that the heat was indeed too much for both us and the fridge, which was
chucking a bit of a tanty, so we packed up and drove in to Esperance, where we
stayed last night in a caravan park. We treated ourselves to eating at a
Chinese Resturant and enjoyed some Broome brewed Ginger Beer (delish!).
Today has consisted of buying a new tyre, buying half of an
Asian grocery, cursing at the lady from Centrelink, and of course, chilling at
the library blogging for you fine people!
Enjoy all.
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