Shark Bay

Campground: Hamelin Station Stay
Facilities: Toilet, Fire-pits, Camp kitchen, Showers, Potable water, Dining area, BBQ.
Good stuff: Really well maintained beautifully run outback homestead. Amazing sunsets and sunrises. One of our favourite campsites so far.
Not so good stuff: Can get noisy and hectic with families and not really close to anywhere apart from the stromatolites
Price: $12 per adult per night

There are number of things to do in Shark Bay… Our issue was that we turned up while the effects of Cyclone Olwyn were still ongoing, which meant that there were an unbearable number of flies. Luckily our set up routine is streamlined and our mossie room is well and truly holding its own; letting fifty flies in rather than hundreds. To be honest this is one of the most unpleasant experiences of the trip so far… Flies were literally being inhaled, accidently eaten, squished in your eyeballs and smushed in your ears. Rock hard ground and flies in the eyes don’t make a good time for hammering in your tent pegs either. We would have had fly head nets but this was not a normal occurrence at this time of year- the worst in 6-30 years depending on who you talk to! SODS LAW.

The main building with camp kitchen and dining area at Hamelin Station Stay

Interesting garden decorations.

Unpleasant as it was, you can’t travel best part of 13000km and hide away in the tent- although we felt like doing that at some points… The stromatolites was our must do item as we have both known about the famous stromatolites at Shark Bay since our uni days.

And on your left you will see some stromatolites...

Now for a closer look, stromatolites mixed in with microbial mats.

Kyle is super happy to finally see these things!

Every person who has visited Shark Bay raved about Monkey Mia. Upon arrival, we were stumped by a rather expensive day fee of $8.50 per person. It was cool seeing the dolphins (and there up to 3 feedings per days) and the area is rather nice but we were somewhat underwhelmed by the experience. It would be great if you had kids but the vast other stretches of free coastline are just as stunning. Maybe we have missed the point somewhere…

Mother and Calf that you may get a chance of feeding if you are one of the lucky ones.

The colours of North West WA.

Our handiest tip from the fly experience is: get up well before sunrise so you can pack up the tent before the flies come out! Then hide in the car…

Steep Point

Steep Point is the second of our Australian geographical extremes- the westernmost point of mainland Australia. We set off early and naively thought it shouldn’t take all day…

From the Shark Bay road turn off, you continue on the tarmac and then that turns into an unsealed road. For the first 98km the road is fine and verging on highway territory. Then it rapidly changes… Considering the road wasn’t meant to be too rough we were in for a bit of a surprise. Margaret, as well as us, had other thoughts. EVERYTHING was shaking, not just shaking; the internals were thrusting up and down on the corrugations. It was so rough that the car thought we had crashed and put on the hazard lights! And our top shelf fell off. It wasn’t the smoothest of rides.

They don't look like much but man did she shake!

Letting down the tyre pressures to 18psi on the front and 20psi on the back helped no bounds. With the tyres down, Margaret glided over the dunes and was more compliant on the corrugations too. The worst part of the drive was at the beginning and a fair few others we met said the same!

The fun task of letting down your tyres... Long but necessary. 

And what do you do while you wait?... Look at the view while cleaning your teeth!

At Steep Point the must done snapshot of the “Westernmost Point” was taken and we were ready to have lunch… But then got distracted by the limestone headland.

The drive looked much like this with a brooding sky and dunes in the foreground.

We were lucky enough to see people at Steep Point to take our photo...

...but if there is no one around it is all covered!

The drive back to the campsite was much better with us waiting until the Salt mine junction before re-inflating our tyres again. The trip was definitely worth it, however we would recommend people staying at least 3 nights to soak up the place. Also, BOOK WELL IN ADVANCE! They were full for 4 months when we contacted the ranger and it sounds like most people book a year in advance…

Lots of huge sand dune views along the drive.

This is the limestone with lots of shell fragments cemented together. Who said geology isn't picturesque!

If we were doing it again, this OKA is what we would want!

Kalbarri NP

Campground: Galena Bridge Rest Area
Facilities: Toilet, Fire-pits, Picnic Benches.
Good stuff: Spacious rest area with ok toilets. The spot had a nice feel to it in general!
Not so good stuff: Due to its location it is rammed… Although there is a 24 hour time limit, you can tell people have been parked up for a while. Oh and the ground is rock hard if you are trying to pitch a tent!
Price: Free

We took the scenic detour to Kalbarri NP and weren’t disappointed. Amazed by pinker than Pink Lakes (in Murray-Sunset NP) salt lake, however we didn’t manage to pull over anywhere to take a photo of it… We just have an action shot.

You may be able to see a tiny sliver of pink...

Heading into Kalbarri there are loads of stunning scenic lookout spots.  And be warned… There are lots of flies! We had millions swarming around our head, thousands in the car from opening the door. To be honest it wasn’t a pleasant experience but the lookouts were good.

Mustard powder dirt road heading to the Z bend lookout points.

There is a turn off to get the to the Loop and Z bend lookouts at Kalbarri NP. That turn off swiftly becomes a dirt road, if you have a 2WD you may need to take it easy for the corrugations and bumpy spots. Stepping out of the car was a fly-magedon experience… Again. Swarms surrounding our head and wafting them away just didn’t do a thing.

So many flies... 

 But you can be engrossed by the stunning scenery heading towards "Nature's Window".

“Nature’s Window” on the Loop track was cool, however we got more excited over all the ancient ripple marks we saw and the stunning scenery in general. Kyle had never seen anything like it before! At the Z bend lookout you get to see some arthropod trackways and this place rapidly made this our favourite National Park!

And this is why it is our favourite so far...

In some ways the vegetation is rather boring but then you see something like this!

Just a bit of geology...

Arthropod track marks... It would have looked like a giant scorpion! 

Z bend lookout point. You can see a joint parallel to the gorge on the left hand side. 

Fremantle Area

Do we think our camping set up is good for what we need/could afford?.... Yes

However, sometimes do you get a tiny bit fed up packing up a damp tent and covered in mud in the process?... Maybe a little

When we arrived in Fremantle and stayed at Kyle’s university friends, Becky and Ian. The first night of getting into a bed at bed height, feeling your skin of soft clean sheets on a very comfortable mattress- just amazing we cannot thank them enough. Also their dog Stan, was constant entertainment with his green ‘laser’ eyes. He is not a mutant, Stan is an awesome chocolate Labrador puppy.

Thrombolites (the mosaic version of stromatolites) at Lake Clifton.

For a closer view, they are pretty cool and the world habitable for likes of us (making oxygen).

Fremantle is a nice place to wander, have a few beers and chill. To be fair that is all what we did there and loved it. There are a fair few quirky independent shops with everything you need to be a trendy hipster but dotted in between are some funky shops. The marina was nice and it was next to it an awesome skate park. A few museums around too- this place has it covered!

Fremantle's answer to the brachiosauris (view from the War Memorial)

From there, York was our next point of call just under 2 hours from Fremantle. York, like its predecessor, is a historic town and apparently the first inland town in WA. A nice place with some good tie ins to ‘proper’ York as Liz likes to say. To be fair it would have been good to stay longer but we wanted to fit in a few places in before heading to our campspot… One being our final brewery before Broome…

A bit of a change from a UK historic town.

And this just had to be done...

Looks like they have flooding here too!

Our plan was to stay at Moore’s River Rest Area, driving closer towards the camping spot, a massive plume of smoke was getting bigger and closer. We soon realized that it was not a safe spot to camp, bush fire on the left of the road, camp spot on the right and you do not mess around with bush fires. That made it a LOOOOOOOOONG day. A snowstorm of moths hit the windscreen while driving at night but there were some amazing scenery along the way. The best drive we have had in a long time and definitely a come back to area.

The plume of smoke we were driving towards...

Lets get the hell out of here!

Albeit long we got to see the Pinnacles... A very busy place and there are a few ideas of how they formed but no one really knows.