Stockyard Gully and beaches

 Stockyard Gully was a great place to visit. The road runs between 2 farms, turns to sand and the last 5km are rough and definitely 4WD only.  Lots of wildflowers.  The outer entrance wall to the cave had large beehives hanging from it.  The cave/tunnel is very wide and open, more a tunnel really.  It’s a very easy walk along the sandy floor and when we turned off the torch was pitch black and silent.  We were the only ones in there.  It’s only about 300m to the other end, where there were more of these unusual beehives.  This tunnel does flood – there’s plenty of debris as evidence - and you wouldn't want to be anywhere near it when that happens!

The cave in Stockyard Gully National Park

Unusual beehives

Back on the coast, Jurien Bay's a nice township.  There's a lot of building going on with new housing estates but it looks a really clean, well planned place with plenty of bushland and of course the ocean. We've been bush camping all the past week so when we found a public hot shower here, that was a priority!  The "bird-baths" we usually have are good, but there's nothing like a hot shower.

On the beach at Jurien Bay

Further along the Indian Ocean Road we explored the little coastal township of Cervantes and were then lucky enough to find a nice camping spot out in the bush, again avoiding having to stay in a caravan park.  It's so lovely when we find places like this (pure luck) as we can have a peaceful night and wake to the sound of the birds, rather than people packing up their vans etc.

South of Geraldton

We are pleasantly surprised by the scenery we encounter in this region.  There's a historic area south of Geraldton where the southerly winds can be so strong and constant that the river gums adapt by growing like .....

... this!!  This is a perfectly healthy tree, one of hundreds

Less dramatic along the roadside, but still a pretty good lean on them

The music shop in Dongara - so cute

The coastal township of Dongara's a nice spot with quite a few historic buildings.  We spent some time here, along with Port Denison on the other side of the river.
Fortunately we explored some of the lesser roads and tracks around the Dongara area and came across the most incredible, white sand dunes.  It was late afternoon and the light was catching the drifts of moving sand.  We climbed up and over and up ...

... the dunes seemed to go forever

 

The Jurien Bay Marine Park occupies a large area of this region

We cut back inland to bush camp and then explore the area around Eneabba where the wildflowers were plentiful.  There's so much variety and we both enjoy getting out of the car for a look, or going for little walks through the bush.

  

Around Geraldton

There's some really scenic countryside heading south towards Geraldton - rolling green hills, acres of wheat and canola, farms, ocean, villages.

The camping area at Coronation Beach, about half hour
north of Geraldton

The town is the biggest we've come across in WA and was a bit of a culture shock for us.  However the 'city centre' is really more like a regional town (Albury or Wodonga perhaps) and we soon found our way around.  It was an opportunity for us to get a few jobs done, including a wheel alignment for Troopy after clocking up over 16,000kms.  As it turned out, my laptop suddenly froze and couldn't be revived so fortunately being in Geraldton meant I could have it sorted out.  I was without it for a week and we had to spend 2 extra nights here but it was better than trying to find our way around Perth to have it done.  We used the time very well:)

The beautiful memorial built to commemorate HMAS Sydney II
which was lost in battle off the coast north of here

Probably the most impressive thing we saw in Geraldton was this HMAS Sydney II memorial.  It sits on a hill overlooking the Indian Ocean and is very symbolic, with good explanations of the various elements.  I think the most moving element is the "waiting woman".  Watching the sun set over the ocean from up here was pretty good too.

The seagull detail in the dome

She's known as the "Waiting Woman", gazing
worriedly out to sea hoping her man is safe

The beaches here are lovely - you wouldn't expect town beaches to be so clean but the sand's white, the water's turquoise and the foreshore's all grassed and tidy.  There's a lot of building work going on, both residential and civic.  We enjoyed the art gallery and especially the museum.  While we were there, the travelling Da Vinci inventions exhibition was on show so that was a must-see.  I particularly enjoyed seeing relics from the "Batavia" as I've read the historical account of this shipwreck and its aftermath, quite a story!  

There are lots of silver coins, the ship's bell, some canons ... all sorts of things have been raised from the ocean during the last 50 or so years.  The ship sank in 1629 so they were lying on the ocean bed for a long time!

Geraldton

He always finds somewhere to lie down:)

We stayed in a caravan park the first night in Geraldton, but then stayed about 15km out of town at a lovely bush camp at Fig Tree Crossing.  It was a beautiful rural area near the Chapman Valley, quiet and far better (for us anyway) than staying in town.  We ended up having 3 nights here and exploring the area a fair bit.  Lots of pink, white and yellow everlasting flowers around.

We were pleasantly surprised at how scenic the area is.  There's the advantage of having rolling hills and fantastic farmland, wildflowers and historic villages with none of it more than half an hour from the sea.  We've been to a few local museums - the one at Northampton was especially good as a local lady showed us through and explained everything from a personal perspective.

Hutt River Province

9th-10th September

Technically this was our international trip.  The Principality of Hutt River seceded from Australia in 1970 - some of you will remember the fight between Leonard Casley, a WA wheat farmer, and the Australian government of the time.  The very short story is the Casleys had been producing 13,000 acres of wheat annually for many years when regulations changed and they were advised they could only produce 100 acres.  They queried this, believing it to be an error in figures, but in doing so upset the government which then tried to 'resume' their land.  Leonard was an extremely intelligent man who then taught himself law and found the answer to keeping his farming rights lay in secession from Australia!  He's still very with it, very quick witted at 89.

Prince Leonard in his Post Office, with his son Prince Graeme

The laws stated he had to become a monarch and as such he's since been known as Prince Leonard. His wife of 66 years, Princess Shirley, died last year.  His (now adult) children are princes and duchesses.  The little museum is full of memorabilia, most of it awards and gifts from foreign dignitaries.  There's some amazing stuff in there.  We really found it interesting.  

This was a really interesting visit.  A couple of the framed notices
are tax assessment notices advising the Casleys that they cannot
pay tax as they are non-residents of Australia.

Phil sitting in the "Prince" chair in the chapel (Prince Phillip?)  The
"Princess" chair is on the other side.

Hutt River has its own government office and post office

The family invites campers so we spent a night here, even setting up
a picnic table for "happy hour" - celebrating Suzi's birthday (Deb's late sister)

So many kangaroo paws growing wild along the roadside

Kalbarri National Park

Kalbarri is a lovely national park where you get the best of both worlds - inland gorges and coastal cliffs.  Not to mention the fabulous wildflowers!  

   
 

We spent 3 nights in the township (there's no camping in the national park) and managed to see everything we wanted to despite the weather not being the best.  During the first night there, the wind was really wild.  We were cosy in the Troopy but it was pretty noisy outside.  It rained all night.  Next day was fine but overcast which really highlighted the colours around the gorges.

Sitting above the Murchison River

"Nature's Window" with Murchison River way below

A pretty good lookout!

Among the wildflowers, lots of these 'blackboys'

The native trees and shrubs are flowering profusely on the way
into Kalbarri and throughout the national park

Only about ten minutes from the Kalbarri township.  This was the first
inclement weather since a day in Broome.  It was dry today but very windy.

Heavy seas mean the cliffs are constantly being eroded.

"Mushroom Rocks" - a fantastic walking track that wound around through
some really unusual rock formations, coloured sandstone and domed rocks
over a million years old.

Beach camps

After our 3 nights at Bottle Bay we thought we’d move on to another area of this national park, so followed the track across the gypsum claypans and through more sand to Herald Bight on the east side of Cape Peron NP.  This was yet another gorgeous beach sheltered by red cliffs.  Here it’s legal to camp right on the beach – in fact there’s no choice, it’s all beach.  There appeared to be only one or two other campers in the whole area.

Some fishermen wandered along later in the afternoon and caught a nice haul of whiting and mullet.  Phil’s been hoping for the last couple of months that someone would take pity on us (not being into fishing) and give us a freshly caught fish for dinner and today his wish came true.  These blokes actually scaled, filleted and trimmed the fish for us!  So we had a nice little feed of fish in our beautiful, sandy beach campsite.

 

Phil keen to try his fish-cooking skills (and a very good job he did)

It was one of the most peaceful places we’ve camped due to its remoteness and lack of people!  We did get some rain, just enough to enjoy the sound at night.  We went for a couple of walks right along the beach – there’s always something to explore when there are rocks, cliffs and shells.  Have you ever played ‘catchy’ with a tennis ball in deep sand?  That was fun (and challenging).

We had 2 nights and 2 full days at Herald Bight then headed south through the park to the old Peron Homestead.  It used to be a sheep station before it ceased operation and became a national park.  There’s an artesian bore and a hot tub for the public to use, so having not showered for a few days we took advantage and had a dip.  It was very hot, you couldn’t stay in for too long, but very pleasant.

That night we camped at one of the bush camps the shire of Shark Bay operates south of Denham.  Campers are only allowed to stay one night, for $10, and must get a permit first from the visitor centre in town.  It was great; having a 4WD meant getting off the beaten track, up a rocky hill and down towards a lovely little bay where we camped. We love these quiet bush camps, so much nicer than caravan parks.

Our bush camp by Shark Bay

Peron Peninsula, Shark Bay World Heritage Area

The Francois Peron National Park covers the northern part of the Peron Peninsula, accessible only along a track of reddish beach sand.  It is a really beautiful part of the country (I know, I probably say that about most of the places we go!)  We just love the remoteness, the untouched feel it has about it.  Of course the colours are stunning too - it's hard to beat the contrast between red sand cliffs, pale beach sand and perfect turquoise water.  Oh and the blue sky goes without saying.  There are a few bush camps along the NW coast; we chose Bottle Bay which has a huge expanse of beach to walk along and a gorgeous outlook.

Our dolphin (Dolores) that we built at Bottle Bay.
See the red dunes in the background ...

Exploring the rocks at one end of the beach.  We found a sea snake.

The clouds made this a pretty amazing sunset over Shark Bay

Bottle Bay beach

We camped here for three nights, with leisurely days walking on the beach, picking up shells, exploring the rocks, having a dip, playing in the sand - doing it tough!!  One morning we drove the 6km to the tip of the cape for a great view and a truly stunning walk across the cliff to the next point (Skipjack Pt).  That is, I did the walk and Phil drove to meet me at the other end.  It was only about 3km but I'll remember it forever.

Tip of the cape, with the dark line at the water's edge being
hundreds of cormorants

On the untouched Cape Peron beach

From the walking track between points

Phil's waiting at the lookout on the tip of this point - see him?