Life's a Beach

After staying at Pemberton we continued east along the coast spending a night at Walpole and visited a nearby forest with Tingle trees. These are eucalypt trees that grow to 70 metres and have a large buttressed trunk. The bases of many trees have large holes and some have so little trunk left at the base that you wonder how the tree can still be alive and stay standing. (Photo - Al in Tingle tree)

We found a delightful camping spot at Parry Beach. A small camp set amongst trees and with flush toilets and solar heated showers it was a bargain at $7 per night. We managed to catch some fish here but thought they were too small for eating so either threw them back or kept them for bait. Later we observed a couple filleting their catch and saw that the size considered OK for eating is much smaller than we are used to. You just need to catch quite a few of them.

Our ongoing troubles with our truck rear wheel oil leak seemed to be continuing and as the mechanic at Northam was happy to have another look at it we decided to go back there. We set off north again and spent a night at Broomehill, where we found top notch facilities at the Shire caravan park. They let us leave the caravan there for free while we carried on to Northam, where we stayed with Jill’s nephew.
It turned out that the apparent oil leak was residue from the before the last repair so didn’t take much to fix. The mechanic at Avon Service Specialists also took a look at the wheel we weren’t having problems with and discovered a leaking oil seal but the oil was being contained by a dust seal so we didn’t know about it. We are very lucky he looked, as it would have only been a matter of time before this wheel would have needed attention. We were very thankful that at last we had found a mechanic who took the time to think about the trouble we had been having and finally, after two other outfits had tried, find the cause of it all – the wrong sized rubber seals had been fitted when we had the wheel bearings replaced back in June.

We had a quick trip back to Broomehill, collected the caravan and carried on to the Stirling Range National Park. Here a range of mountains, about 65km east to west, rises out of the surrounding plains. From starting points of about 400 metres we took a walk up two of the mountains, 780 metres and 1095 metres. As we made our way up the mountains we came across a variety of wildflowers. At the tops we had great views of the coast about 100km away and over the surrounding plains. (Photo - Al near top of Bluff Knoll)

Along the south coast there are many beautiful beaches and we have visited a few of them over the past two weeks. Bremer Bay, on a peninsula, has about half a dozen beaches in close proximity to one another. One day we visited several looking for a sheltered fishing spot. We found a nice spot on some rocks and over an hour or so we caught eight small fish, enough for a couple of meals. Jill caught a small shark that was sent back to the sea. (Photo - Al with catch of the day)

Quagi Beach was a gem of a camp spot, only toilets and cool showers provided but at $2 per person it was good value. The camp area was set amongst a Banksia forest with each camp area well separated from the next. The Banksia was in flower and there were birds everywhere, mostly New Holland honeyeaters, some Western Wattle birds and Willy Wagtails. The beach was interesting with different types of rocks at each end, gneiss and limestone. Our fishing here wasn’t very successful with us feeding lots of fish and only catching a couple.

On our way to Esperance we passed lots of truck and trailer units transporting grain. It is harvesting time and the trucks are carting the grain to various depots. At the depots there are sheds, silos and large outdoor grain heaps covered by tarpaulins. We have been amazed by the extent of the grain growing area in WA and have discovered the area they call the “Wheatbelt” is about the area of the South Island of NZ . 90% of the WA wheat is exported.

We stopped at Esperance for groceries and carried on to Duke of Orleans Bay, about 80km to the west. Here there is a series of white sandy beaches with clear blue water. Getting from one beach to the next may entail driving along the beach to a headland then across a sandy track to the next beach. The sand is very fine and generally beach surface is hard. In one day we visited six different beaches. Again the fishing wasn’t very successful but it’s always fun trying.

Our last beach stop along this coast was in Cape Le Grand National Park at Le Grand Beach. It is a great National Park camp, a few metres from the beach, tucked in behind a sand dune with good spacing between campsites. Provided are flush toilets, solar heated showers and a camp kitchen with gas cooking facilities and hot running water. This is the first National park camp we have found with all these facilities. Within this National Park are several beaches, all with rocky headlands at one end or the other. There are several large granite domes within the park and we climbed Frenchman Peak, one of the taller ones at 262 metres, giving great views over the Recherche Archipelago with it’s many granite islands. We are now poised to head east and across the Nullarbor plains.
(Photos - Le Grand Beach. On top of Frenchman Peak. Christmas trees recovering from fire.)