Quobba

26th Pwhat I mean'll know arallel - Welcome to the North West - its official!

We've been up the highway so many times, usually in quite a hurry to get to Coral Bay and relax, that we have never stopped at the lookout on top of the 'flat hill'.  If you've ever been up this way you'll know what we mean.  Guess what? We stopped - can't say the photo does it justice but a great view over salt lake to the ocean. Tick!

We stayed the night at point Quobba, free camping, no facilities, but with an ocean view.  Not bad.  We were situated right next to the Blow Holes, they were really big. The day we had a look they were going full force, blowing water up about 15 metres. 

Our next night we spent at Quobba Station.  What a great place, reception was lovely, place was definitely a station and they were still fixing things up from the Cylcone, boy has that done some damage around the place, but a great feel to the place.  We parked our van up and took off for the day to check out Red Bluff and Gnarloo Bay.  Gnarloo Bay is beautiful, a real gem of a place and the station looked quite a great spot to stay if you wanted accommodation without having your own, beautiful little stone and tin huts with a view.

The beach at Quobba Station had the most amazing deposits of HUGE shells, they were everywhere and they request all are left there to retain the beach as it is.  The coast here has a real raw energy, its an angry ocean hitting cliff faces and the beaches look ragged.  Its really beautiful to see.

A great place to visit.

Shark Bay

The flies had heard of Denham and had decided it was their favourite spot.  MAN they were bad. Yuck, Yuck, Yuck.  Anyway enough of yet another Adult Tantrum.

We stopped at the Stromatolites at Hamelin Pool, fascinating!  Another awesome learning experience, we read about the microbial mats and stromatolites, then saw fish in the perfectly clear water and even a jelly fish trapped in a small rock pool at low tide.  A great close up of a very big jellyfish.

 The must do stop at Shell Beach enticed us into the water to get away from the flies, and it worked, for a few minutes. hehe.  What a magic spot and the water was the perfect temperature.

 Cape Peron at the top of the Francois Peron National Park is another spectacular West Australian highlight.  Viewing fish and reef through pristine, clear turquoise waters, standing on the edges of bright red cliffs.  What a beautiful part of the world.

The track out to Cape Peron was 40kms and definitely 4WD only, had a great time bouncing along the red sand.

We made a small detour to Bottle Bay for some snorkelling and exploring.  Stephen saw a sea snake (luckily on his own not with the kids) and made a quick exit from the water.  Next the boys had a great time seeing all manner of fish, then a couple of North West Blowies came along and ended that moment,  they're vicious things those ones - they really go for you.  A fisherman in the area had just lost the tip of his finger to one recently so we jumped out of the water.

Just a fly or two............

We were lucky enough to meet friends from 'home' here in Denham.  Sonya, Paul, Kyle and Aidan were on holiday at Paul's sisters for a week or so and we loved our stay with them for a few nights.  It was great spending time with them and the boys loved the boy company.

Thank you so much to Sue, Paul's sister, for putting up with us on her block.  What a wonderful time we had and such a blast from the past that we knew Sue from many years back.  We will definitely be back to Denham, it really was a gorgeous spot.

Heading on up.....

Kalbarri, flies and caravan park

Kalbarri was our next stop, we booked into a caravan park due to school holidays.  We thought it would be hard to get accomodation but it hasn't seemed to be the case luckily.

The boys hadn't seen Kalbarri so we took them out to the coastal gorges and the inland gorges, which Caleb was very unimpressed to see more walking involved.

There is a plague going on at the moment that we came across as soon as we hit Kalbarri, it wasn't as apparent in the caravan park itself but as soon as we hit the coastal gorges we understood why everyone was walking around with fly nets on.  The Flies are beyond belief.  We have spoken to heaps of locals since and they've never seen anything like it either.  The fly nets help dramatically but the little critters crawling all over your skin creep you out after a few days of it.  Adult Tantrum coming up - hehe

We have had a few laughs at peoples expense with many doing a dance before getting in their cars, trying valiantly to lose the flies before entering their vehicle.  It doesn't really work as it takes you another 20 mins to get rid of the ones that couldn't be 'danced off'.

After 5 nights at Kalbarri we headed to Denham, hoping the flies hadn't heard about it.......

Heading North - Woo Hoo!

We orignally 'moved into' our caravan on Caleb's birthday back at the end of February and heading North fitted into the theme - we left on Tash's birthday.  At least we will remember the big dates.

Heading up, we made camp at Point Louise in Green Head the first night after a day of driving and sightseeing.


The boys enjoyed learning about the Pinnacles and Caleb is gradually coming around to the idea that he will have to walk to see most things. 

The next night we came across a great free camping spot, Cliff Head, Stephen had read a blog where the couple raved about it and we must say we agreed.  Quite, tucked in behind a cliff, good fishing and had the weather been a bit nicer snorkelling would have been awesome too.  A great stop for 72 hours max, well worth a visit for self contained vehicles.

Thanks Dongara Council!

Completing the practice loop

We left Kalgoorlie early, hoping to stop in Coolgardie for a refuel and some breakfast.  It was closed!

Yeah the whole town.  The information centre was open and I picked up one brochure on the area, it was all a bit Ghost Towny.  Quite interesting.  After following 'cafe open' signs for a while and not getting anywhere we headed out of town towards Meckering.


Meckering is known by most West Australians for the earthquake that happened back in 1968.  Shattering the small town and there are some interesting sights to see, showing you how much damage an earthquake can do.  

Railway tracks bent by the earthquake were mind blowing. The big camera is a camera museum.

Ettamogah Pub wasn't open unfortunately but with no-one in sight it was easier for a photo opportunity.  

This was our spot in Merredin for a night.  The Council have just organised an RV friendly overnight area and the girl at the Information Centre gave us a mud map where to go, advising us to ignore the no camping sign - we did but I'm pretty sure all of the people who parked nearby thought we were naughty peoples.  

The overnighter at Merredin is located at Merredin Peaks, we had a great time climbing the rock and seeing how the dam worked.  Although the boys aren't spending hours a day doing 'schoolwork', the general knowledge they are experiencing and picking up along the way is incredible.

We had a visitor to our camp spot in Merredin, Terry came and had dinner, a drink and a laugh with us that night.  It was wonderful to catch up with him and hear all about his new 'retired' life.  Retirement didn't last long.  Lucky for us Terry has a house in York and was happy for us to plonk ourselves on his block the next night so we headed for York, set ourselves up behind his amazing hand crafted wall and checked out the town.

The York Car museum is a must see for all car buffs and seeing there are four in our family we headed in for a peek.  What a great place.  its incredible how many cars are in what seemed to be quite a small space.  Mustangs, Beetles, Caddi's, A9X Torana, there were so many historic cars in there the boys were in awe.  They even had my old mustard Corolla (although mine wasn't in such good nick).

From York we headed back into Perth for the caravan checkup and a quick goodbye to all.

Wheat Belt

Leaving Cape Arid, saw us staying at an uninspiring caravan park in Esperance that allowed us to do the washing and get ready to move on.

Our next stop was Fraser Range Station.  Located an hour East from Norseman this Station seems to be used by Nullabor travellers, weary after so much nothing to stay somewhere pleasant and get ready to explore Western Australia.  We on the other hand made our way out there to show the boys a working sheep station.

Unlucky for us we were unable to do the station tour due to weather so for a couple of nights we made the most of the scenery, the station dogs (Zoe and Mac) and a brand new baby lamb to chat to.  It was a great spot to explore.  Number 6 hole on the Nullabor links Golf Course.

The boys are now in love with Red Heelers and have watched Red Dog a couple of more times since being at the station.

Animals have been quite an attraction as we've travelled around.  The boys faces light up when they see any animal they can interact with.

From Fraser Range Station we made our way to Kalgoorlie, had a look at the Super Pit - WOW - its huge - super in fact.;-)

Stayed at a great free camp just 9kms out of Kalgoorlie on the way to Coolgardie for the night, flies were bad (although we had no idea how bad they could actually get until later in our trip - more of that later) but spot had plenty of room to move and could have accomodated a thousand I'm sure.