Coffin Bay NP: Point Sir Isaac

Campground: The Pools Campground.
Facilities: Toilets, Rainwater Tank.
Good stuff: Stunning camping spot overlooking a beautiful bay and good fishing!
Not so good stuff: Red back spiders in loo and can get busy on weekend due to limited camping spots.
Price: $10 Vehicle Fee; $10 per night (up to 8 occupants)

The drive from Yangie Bay up along the eastern side of Coffin Bay NP is a 4WD only affair due to the wonderful mix or sharp, unevenly sized limestone cobbles and soft sand dunes. If you can make it to Lake Jessie, a few km past the Yangie Bay campsite, then you can make it up to the point – a 40km one way drive. Low tyre pressures will help save your sidewalls and smooth out the ride immeasurably, you have been warned! We timed our drive to Point Sir Isaac around the tides, as Seven mile beach becomes impassable at high tide.

A rather stunning drive along Seven Mile Beach

The scenery was typical for this area - large limestone escarpments, granite headlands and sapphire blue seas rolling into the distance. The small coastal scrub that line the single lane tracks really do a number on your paintwork…. Bush pinstripes ahoy! After being shaken about a fair bit we pulled into The Pools campsite area and found it to be clearly marked and nicely segregated so we were not overlooking the neighbours.

Some gneiss scenery... Oh how we have longed for the slap stick geo-pun!

Stepping over the dune leads you straight to a large sheltered beach that stretches away to your left with a nice rocky headland to your right, guess where we went? FISHING! The granite/gneiss in the area has made some really nice little rock ledges and shelves that are great for throwing in a line and catching some dinner. We had high hopes due to our recent fishing prowess and the fact that we had sacrificed the appropriate number of lures to the sea gods (that seems to be the trick – lose two, catch one).

Loads of baby mussels

Nothing much was happening but then, out of nowhere, a huuuuge shoal of fish was swimming right by the rock Kyle was stood on, seriously hundreds of fish. Cast and retrieve, cast and retrieve, retrieve really fast and BOOM! Fish on!! Big fish on…. Turns out to be another Australian Salmon but this time a whopping 45cm beast. In the excitement of getting it down to the water Kyle jumped off a dry rock onto a slippy rock, both feet in the air and then landed horizontally on his back – Owww! But he held onto the fish (and didn’t manage to land on the filleting knife); after a quick gut, scale and clean he hobbled back and we cooked fish fajitas. What a fantastic meal! (That would have fed four... oink oink oink)

Big fish but ouch my back smile...

As the wind had changed direction the next day, and the seas were a bit rougher we decided to take a drive around the northern end of the peninsular and visit Sensation Beach, Reef Point lookout and Mullalong Beach. Standing up on the limestone cliffs and looking out onto the massive swell of the southern ocean makes you appreciate the fact that we are in a nice sheltered spot and don’t have to take a boat to work. Still no with the fishing… The sea gods weren’t working in our favour on this day (maybe more lures were needed to be delivered to them).

Dune leading on to Sensation Beach

Upside down tractor at Sensation Beach??!!!

Reef Point Lookout with some large waves going on! 

Old coral bed. Pretty cool!

On the way out of the NP we were faced again with the sand track mogul field. Fun for a person who was recovering from his fishing back injury… Be warned for the following rant: if you do decide to head up on the 4WD tracks in Coffin Bay NP PLEASE LOWER YOUR BLOODY TYRE PRESSURES! There are so many spots where people have got stuck and dug themselves into a hole on hard sand?! It is ruining the tracks and just silly for the sake of taking 10 minutes to lower your car and trailers tyre pressures. Know your car’s capability and your own driving ability and the tracks will be better for everyone – end rant. Oh and when we pulled up to air up the tyres we saw that the tread plate on the rear bar had worked loose over the corrugations. The Riv-nuts had completely come out of the steel, but superglue will fix it… it fixes everything.

Yes another sunrise photo... The Pools Campground.