Half-lap Day 104: The Nullarbor

Once again it was a very cold morning, and LiAM and Millie had both woken during the night and come up to our bed. Caitlin had moved on to Millie’s bed because it’s a bit further from the floor and a bit warmer than hers. Her sleeping bag is so cosy though that she’s usually not as cold as the others – sometimes her hot water bottle is still slightly warm in the morning when she gets up.

We had enough wood left over from the night before for me to start the fire again, and I had a cup of tea and read Harry Potter for a short while, before we started to get breakfast ready and to pack up. We’d slept till after sunrise, because sunrise is much earlier than we are used to, and so the morning seemed to be progessing faster than we expected it to.

We had a fairly efficient pack up, and all braved the toilet one more time, then were on the road by about 9.30am. This morning it was wedge-tailed eagles that we saw not long after we left – standing on the road eating roadkill, and then flying into the air as we approached – Tony slowed down and beeped his horn at them so they had plenty of time to get away, and it was amazing watching them take off and fly over our car.

As we got closer to the border, we could see the escarpment up ahead of us (it ws still running along to our left) coming to a sharp corner. As we got closer we realised that the road turned and went up the face of the escarpment, and what we could see was the escarpment meeting the coast, and then turning to the east and becoming the Bunda cliffs which run along the edge of the Great Australian Bight. We could see a bit of the ocean to our right as we drove up, and then stopped at a lookout soon after getting to the top. Looking back we could see the plains in the distance and then the cliff face beginning. Down below, with a plateau of green land between the cliff and the shore, we could see and hear waves breaking on the beach. To the left the cliffs became more sheer and headed off as far as we could see to the east. It was pretty cool – the kids at first didn’t want to get out of the car, then we told them it was worth checking out so they came and had a look and quite liked the view.

We kept on driving, listening to Harry Potter Book 7 (which was extremely exciting as we approached the end of the book), and looking at the Nullarbor – it was varied enough and fascinating enough to never be boring. Occasionally we’d get glimpses of the ocean beyond the cliffs to our right. For a lot of the drive today, there were no trees at all, just low grass and bushes. IT ws all much greener than we’d expected too – a muted, dull green, but definitely green and not brown.

We’d heard from a few sources that stopping at Head of Bight to see the whales was a highlight, so we pulled in there early in the afternoon. We paid our money at the Visitors Centre then started down the boardwalk towards the lookout. LiAM bought his binoculars with him in case we saw any, but he wasn’t confident that we’d get a whale sighting. As we walked I could see dark shapes in the bay to our left, which occasionally puffed water out – obviously whales and LiAM started to get excited. A family walking back up the path told us that there were LOTS. The kids ran ahead of me and as the path started to zigzag down the hill to the lookout I could see a large whale in the water beyond the kids – I called out and pointed it out to them, and all of us were astounded. These were Southern Right Whales and they were SO BIG! Bigger than my brain could comprehend. By the time I reached the kids they had counted 12 whales, and we kept seeing more, then realised that most of them had calves with them as well.

In the water below the lookout there were 3 whales with their calves. They were swimming along near the surface of the water, sometimes ducking under a little, sometimes changing direction, occasionally the calves would lift their flippers and flap them on the water. It was so incredible to watch. Once or twice we had one swim straight towards the shore, directly in front of where we were standing. We couldn’t get enough of looking at them, then were so magnificent and beautiful and awe inspiring. Some started to dive a little so we got a good view of their tails, and they always came back up again quickly and we could watch them some more. A little further out a pair were rolling over and flapping their flippers and looked like they were having a lot of fun. Every now and then we’d hear one of them make a big breathing sound – it sounded like a massive wave rushing through a blowhole, a deep, moaning, whoomping sound.

There were two people watching the whales near us and the guy had a massive zoom lens on his camera, on a tripod. As they walked away Tony pointed out their jackets, which said ‘Sea Shepherd Crew’. So these guys were hard core whale lovers, willing to risk a lot to help protect whales.

We walked around to the other lookout, reading the signs about whales on the way. There were more whales visible from here (not quite so close, but still close enough.) From here we could also see west along the Bunda Cliffs for quite a long way – sheer, very tall cliffs falling from a very flat plain, straight to the ocean. Very much of a case of ‘Australia ends here’ – it looked like the edge of the world. Breathtaking.

The guy with the camera was here as well, along with several more Sea Shepherd Crew members. I started talking to him about his camera, and then being on the Sea Shepherd, and he introduced me to the Captain. He and I talked for a while, about what they do when they come across a whaling ship, and what it looked like in Antarctica, and what they are doing at the moment (trying to document lots about the Bight, so that they can raise awareness and hopefully help stop BP from drilling for oil here). He was so interesting to talk to, he was very self-assured and calmly spoken and his passion came through powerfully but not in an overwhelming way.

While we were talking one of the whale calves started to breach, it jumped out 5 or 6 times and everyone was excited to watch it. It was cool to see even the Sea Shepherd guys get so excited, when they have obviously seen this happen so often. We also saw one whale spy-hopping (just popping it’s head up above the water) and then we reluctantly left the whales and headed back to the car.

We had a bit to eat and then kept driving east. We stopped for petrol at the Nundroo roadhouse, and asked if we could camp there but the girl said they were all booked out. We drove a bit further on to a free camp – without toilets, but there were no camps with toilets all through the South Australian section of the Nullarbor. We made sure everybody went while we were at the roadhouse, and figured we could go bush for one night. We sat in the car and listened to the end of the 7^th Harry Potter book – very exciting and a little sad to be finished, we’ve been with Harry now since Alice Springs I think.

We arrived around 4 (West Australian time, which was now 5.30 South Australian time) and set up as the sun was setting again. We gathered wood, there was plenty available if we looked a bit beyond the main part of the camp. I made everyone a hot chocolate and we sat around the fire and felt cosy. We had left over potatoes and tuna and corn and mayo for dinner, very tasty. LiAM read a bit more Harry Potter and I read the first couple of scenes out loud to everyone. Tony and I also spent time looking at the map trying to figure out a bit of a plan for getting home over the next 6 nights. We had hoped to go down to Streaky Bay or somewhere (we’d wanted to be at least to Ceduna by tonight, but travelling east and not starting early enough in the day each day made that tricky) but decided it was going to leave too much distance to travel in the last couple of days, so we’d just go straight towards Port Augusta tomorrow and hopefully get as far as Kimba.

We decided to start Millie off in our bed, she had a bit of a sore throat and a sniffly nose, and it was easier than having her climb in half way through the night. This meant Caitlin could start the night on Millie’s bed too. We also offered LiAM the opportunity to start in our bed, and possibly one of us sleep in his bed, but he decided to just rug up earlier and go to bed with socks and jacket on, and stay warm that way. I also reorganized the blankets a bit so that he would be warmer. We got the hot water bottles ready and went to bed to read more of Inheritance.

Half-lap Day 95: Kalbarri -> Cliff Head North

It wasn’t too cold this morning and although it was quite cloudy it wasn’t raining. We’d all slept a little later than usual due to our late night, so got up and started getting ready to leave as soon as we could. We are getting so much more efficient at packing up, so it’s not stressful at all. When the kids got up they went to see the goats, and our neighbours were up by now as well so took all of the kids into the pen to pat them. There was a little bit of rain on and off as we packed up, nothing heavy, it just meant we did things in a slightly different order so that the important things stayed dry.

While we were packing a couple with a young child drove past on their way out with their camper trailer. They hit a bump near our tent and one of the wheels fell off their trailer. I was impressed at how well they coped – they just got out and figured out what they needed to do to fix it, with the help of the guy across from us, and then went into town to get the parts they needed. Our neighbours and we were very thankful that nothing like that had happened to us, and that this had happened at low speed in the campground and not when they were somewhere more dangerous.

We were packed up by 9.30, then Tony went up to the kitchen to make a coffee and get breakfast for the younger 2 kids. We chatted more to our new friends and the kids played a bit more totem tennis and barrel walking, we said goodbye to all the animals, and our friends, and finally reluctantly left the station. Caitlin had briefly seen one of the station kids in the morning and been able to say goodbye to them as well. If we didn’t have a deadline to be home in a couple of weeks we definitely would have stayed longer here, we all really loved it. It was so peaceful down near the river, our campsite was flat and not too rocky or sandy, having the animals around was exciting and always interesting, the camp kitchen and lounge area was the best we have seen on our trip, and the location was great, we would have loved to have spent more time in the National Park as well.

We drove in to Kalbarri and got fuel, and could see the river winding past the town and then meeting the sea. The water was calm and flat in the river, then at the mouth there were waves going in every direction, it looked crazily tumultuous. There were big, thick grey clouds in the sky now and it was a lot windier near the coast. We drove up to Red Bluff, which was the main place I had wanted to see in this area (before I knew about Nature’s Window). It was a little walk from the carpark to the top of the cliff, there were a few lookouts along the way before reaching the bluff. It was obviously pouring rain out to sea, and the ocean was a deep, dark grey. The waves were pounding on the bottom of the cliff, splashing over the rock and churning into white water, with a turquoise blue colour just behind the break and as the water rushed back out. I love the sound and the feel of waves breaking onto rocks, and Millie was surprised when I said ‘I love cliffs’, then asked everyone to be careful where they were sitting at the top of the cliff. There was a great spot to sit and watch, where the bluff sloped down for a while so it wasn’t sheer, so I didn’t have any vertigo, but I still wanted to make sure everyone watched their step. I explained that I love how cliffs look and feel and my fear of heights doesn’t get in the way of that, I just need people to be careful. We walked out to the end of the bluff and looked at more waves crashing onto different rocks. It was quite magnificent. We could also look back and see the green ampitheatre type area we’d admired from the road into Murchison House Station. On the walk back to the car we admire lots of wildflowers either side of the path.

View from Red Bluff

As we drove further through the National Park (the park follows the coastline here for a while) it started to rain, really heavily for a while. We’d wanted to look at more of the coastal sights but didn’t know how that would go in this downpour – then we came out the other side and it was still overcast but no longer raining. We could even see some lighter patches of sky moving northwards towards us. We drove out to the carpark for Island Rock. Millie wasn’t keen to get out of the car to see anything else, so she stayed and the rest of us wandered down to the lookout. There was a rock coming up out of the water that would once have been part of the cliff, but the adjoining rock had been eroded away. It felt and looked a lot like areas of the Great Ocean Road. While we were at the lookout our friends from last night arrived. We looked at the view with them, then the mums and kids all walked to the next lookout, and the dads drove the cars and trailers to the next carpark to meet us there.

Island Rock

LiAM walked with the 5 year old and chatted to him more about Star Wars and other stories, and they looked at the views and birds. Caitlin walked with the mum and the 3 year old, helping to keep him from running along these paths (a boardwalk) that came close to the cliff edges at times, without any fences. Caitlin was impressed that I was able to walk along there without any trouble – I was fine as long as I stayed on the path and didn’t go right to the edge. As we walked we had a changing view of Island Rock, then the next attraction was the Natural Bridge – an arch in the rock, reaching out into the sea. It was very cool as well, especially when the big waves hit it and we could see the spray splashing back through the arch.

Natural Bridge

While we were admiring the view and talking about how it would have formed, we saw dolphin fins. They disappeared and reappeared a few times, then we saw that it was a pod of about 14. One of them leaped out of the water and they swam around for a while, surfacing and ducking under, obviously fishing. Once they had moved out of sight we headed back along the path, stopping at one more lookout over Island Rock, where Tony and Millie joined us. (Tony had popped down to the Bridge lookout then gone back to the car to be with Millie). Millie was sad to have missed the dolphins – I saw them briefly again but she missed them. We watched the waves for a while, then went back to the Bridge lookout and watched there – with no luck. I’m glad she saw the view, though it was disappointing that she missed her favourite animal.

dolphins

Island Rock from the other side

Back at the car we had some sandwiches, then continued driving south. The countryside was quite green and pretty, all farmland here, dotted with windmills. The next town we reached was Geraldton, which seemed very full of traffic after so long only seeing smaller, remote towns. It felt a lot like Newcastle, with a large industrial looking port to the south of the main town (I hadn’t realised that was there), and lots of very old buildings, with a new, modern precinct along the foreshore. I had heard about a fantastic playground near the foreshore, with games as well as play equipment, so we headed there for the kids to play while I went to the shops. There were some deep parking spots nearby, so we unhitched the trailer to make it easier for me to navigate a shopping centre carpark, and Tony took the kids to the playground. They said it was awesome, lots of things to do and a great place to hang out. I tried to find a new carseat for Millie, with no luck, but did get her some new thongs. I stocked up on food for the next couple of days, then headed back to get the trailer and the rest of the family.

We hitched up again and stopped at KFC on our way out and bought a small $1 chips each, a nice way to tide us over until dinner. We continued south for another hour or so, trying to get as far south as we could while keeping in mind that the sun was getting lower in the sky and we didn’t want to set up after dark. A little way south of Dongara we pulled into a 72 hour rest area at Cliff Head North. I’d been worried that we wouldn’t be able to find the turnoff or that the road in would be hard to navigate – the sign was obvious on the highway, and we turned into the rest area and were greeting with the ocean only a couple of hundred metres along a straight, wide access road. The water looked silky and was starting to turn orange and blue as the sun approached the horizon. It was so beautiful, and had been rather easy to find! There were several caravans set up there on either side of the road, and we were thinking of setting up at the last space towards the water – our tent would have come a fair way out on to the road though and I was concerned that if the caravans behind us wanted to leave first in the morning, they might not have room to turn around. There were a lot of puddles on the ground and there didn’t seem to be anywhere else suitable. We wandered down a track leading off the cleared area, talked briefly to a couple who had their caravan in a campsite down there, and found a large campsite, close to the shore, with enough dry, flat area for us to put our tent. Tony drove down and we spent a bit of time figuring out the best orientation for the tent (I wanted a bit of shelter if it got windy, we needed to avoid a couple of rocks, and the slight slope works better if the tent is sloping up not down. We eventually got it figured out and set up as the sun slipped over the horizon.

There was an oil rig out on the horizon which in the daylight looked like a large bird perched on the water, then was just a huge orange light glowing out to sea once it got dark. Our site was separated from the ocean only by a beach of seaweed. We could hear and see low waves breaking against the seaweed, it felt very cool to be so close to the ocean. We had our dinner (rissoles and eggs and bread rolls) and got ready for bed. I walked back down to the toilets and they were pretty gross – they had the buckets with disinfectant and brushes for washing out the bowl before and after use (most Western Australian national parks and rest stops have these, and they’ve meant clean and non-smelly drop toilets so far) – but in this case the water in the buckets was dirty and disgusting, so the brush couldn’t clean the toilet bowl so they were gross as well. We decided to do bush wees for the remainder of our stay here – easy enough because we were in such a secluded spot, we could see the top of the caravan nearest us and otherwise were completely alone.

The night became quite cool, so we rugged up a bit and sat looking at the stars and listening to the ocean, before heading in to bed to read for a while. Thee was light in the sky from Geraldton, quite bright to the north, so the stars weren’t as showy as further north, but we still had a great view of the milky way.

Half-lap Day 75: Port Hedland

It wasn’t as cold this morning, and it was beautiful again sitting under the gum trees and having breakfast, exploring the site and taking it easy. We got ready and headed off to Port Hedland around 10am. There were some interesting rock features from time to time on the drive there, otherwise the land was mainly flat. We crossed the railway line that LiAM and I had seen the day before, and saw a few mining areas. We also saw some wedge-tailed eagles – a couple in the air and one on the ground. We hadn’t seen one since before Mataranka and we were all thrilled. As always we were astounded at how big they are.

Coming in to Port Hedland things were suddenly busy and there were trucks and mining cars everywhere. We passed the airport and saw several areas with demountable accommodation, assumedly for the mining workers. We decided to go in to the Port first and were heading in on that road when I remembered that we’d been going to go to a camping store first so that we could get a new fuse for the fridge cord, and the store we wanted was in South Hedland. We decided to check out the Port first then come back later.

As we drove in we saw a very large hill of salt with a large digger driving around on it, I’d heard about these salt piles but it was even more incredible to see in reality. The salt was near the railway bridge, and as we approached one of the kilometre+ long trains was driving underneath. It had a 44 and 43 class engine on the front, and we drove alongside it for a long time, seeing the 2 similar engines in the middle and then another long line of empty cars. I’ve wanted to see these trains since I worked at BHP in my early 20s, so I was incredibly excited. We drove past BHP Billiton Iron Ore, the entry way and the works reminded me a lot of the steel works in Newcastle, I was feeling quite nostalgic and excited at the same time.

We followed the signs to the town centre and did a quick cruise around the block, seeing the impressive Esplanade Hotel – 3 stories of sandstone bricks, with a dark railing around the balconies on the top 2 floors. It took up all of one side of a block – a massive and beautiful building. We parked near the port and wandered out on to the little viewing jetty. As we’d approached there was a large ship coming in, and we saw one being put into position along one of the wharves. It was amazing to watch the tugs maneuver this massive ship into place so easily. We could see ships out on the horizon and 3 berthed across on the other side of the (fairly narrow) port. I was a bit nervous on the jetty as it was just iron lattice, and the railings were just 2 horizontal bars. We  went to the lower level of the jetty – even less railing and much closer to the water (which was at low tide) and we didn’t stay down there long.

We walked down to the Information Centre and got info on all the things to do in Port Hedland, as well as about Karajini National Park where we will be headed next. We bought a 4 week National Parks Pass which should cover us for the rest of our time in WA. Millie had wanted to come to this Visitor’s Centre because her friend from home who we’d seen in Broome had bought a toy turtle here, and she wanted to buy one too. We found the turtle and I suggested getting a smaller (cheaper) one, and she decided to buy both of them. They are pretty cute and she later offered to share the small one with LiAM if he gives her half the money, he was happy to do that.

Back to the car and we drove out to South Hedland to the camping store. We saw some more trains on our way out over the bridge. The guy there said that he didn’t sell the fuses we needed – it would be best to go to Pilbara Motor Group, way back in Port Hedland, not far from the Visitor’s Centre. So we drove back in and found the place he talked about, Tony popped in and bought the fridge, put it in the cord – and the fridge started working again, hooray!!! Because it is so well insulated and we didn’t open it much once we realised it was off, all the food stayed pretty cold and we didn’t lose anything.

We drove back out to the railway bridge and sat at the viewing area at the base of it to have our lunch. Caitlin dropped her phone on the concrete as we arrived and smashed her screen. We said we’d get a screen protector for it as soon as we went shopping that afternoon, and she wasn’t too upset. A train came past as we were getting our food out, so we rang my Dad and chatted to him while it went past, he was excited about it as well. We also talked to my Mum and nephew, he was thrilled to talk to LiAM and the girls. A few trains went past as we ate, all of them loaded with iron ore, and with only one set of engines (shorter than the train we’d seen on our first pass over the bridge). We had a great view of the salt hill too, with the huge road trains coming in to collect the salt and take it to the port – the big digger scooped up salt and dropped into the trailers – 2 scoops into each of the 3 trailers, then that truck would leave and another would arrive. There was rarely a break for the digger.

After we’d eaten another train came through so we ran up to the lookout at the top of the bridge to watch the train pass underneath it, which was pretty cool. We had an even better view of the salt pile here too. It was so white, and a great contrast against the blue sky. There were lots of road trains of all types thundering over the bridge. We’d only occasionally seen 4-trailer road trains so far (most of them had had 3) but here, 4 was as common as 3. Everything just seems bigger in Port Hedland.

We packed up and headed towards Woolworths, and as we drove along next to the line there was an empty train headed out, with the engines in the middle again. I counted 132 wagons between the 2 sets of engines, and it looked about the same number beyond the 2^nd wagons.

There was a phone repair place next to Woolworths, so we decided to get Caitlin’s screen fixed as it was a pretty serious smash. We went in to get groceries for our trip to Karajini, this will be our last chance to shop before then. Millie wasn’t really enjoying shopping to Tony took her back out to the car and the rest of us finished it off. The girl at the checkout put only 2-4 things in each bag when she packed them, so I think we now have enough plastic bags to use for our rubbish bin for the rest of the trip!

Next stop was the foreshore where it’s possible to see turtles at high tide. We weren’t going to get a high tide before the sun set, but as the tide was coming in it was worth checking out anyway (I figured they didn’t just turn up exactly at the moment the tide was highest). There was a walkway along the foreshore, then an area of honeycomb rock which then formed a small cliff down to the water. There was still a bit of sand between cliff and water when we arrived, Caitlin and LiAM climbed down and found some shells, then came back up and we wandered along the top. There were bits of seaweed in the water which at first looked like turtles, but no other signs of life at this stage. It was so beautiful to be there though – the sun was low in the sky which made the honeycomb rocks glow red and cast interesting shadows. The waves were rolling in and splashing and to the east it was a gorgeous coastline. To the west we could see all the port equipment silhouetted against the setting sun. To the north we could see all the ships on the horizon. (The coastline here faces north). We sat near the edge of the cliff for a while and watched the water, then Tony took the kids to the playground. I stayed and simply enjoyed watching the waves and the shadows and the increasing tide and the port. Caitlin came back over after a while and I was thinking I’d be saying ‘I haven’t seen any turtles yet’ – and then a turtle popped it’s head out of the water! From that point on I saw them fairly regularly – just a large, dark, round head popping up for a couple of seconds – very hard to take a photo off as they were so quick and could come up anywhere, but very exciting. Caitlin soon saw them as well, and we called the others over.

It took a while for each successive person to see them, and we showed a few other people where the turtles were too. Eventually everyone except Millie had seen one – I had managed to get a photo finally, and when I showed it to her she said ‘oh – I’ve seen those, I didn’t know that was what we were looking for!’ Very occasionally we also saw a flipper, and once one swam by close enough and on the right angle that we could see its shell and flippers as well. Beautiful Flatback Turtles and a very exciting way to spend the evening.

Flat-backed turtle

Once the sun was down we got our hot chook out of the car and had a picnic tea, although soon moved back into the car because the mosquitoes were so bad. We drove back into town because I wanted to see the port at night. We went back out on the jetty – it looked so different at high tide – and watched some tugs moving around, then walked along the Esplanade where we could peer through the security fences and see different parts of the port. I love that night time industrial noise and look – just a dull hum and bright lights which suggest lots of busyness. Walking past the Esplanade Hotel we heard a loud engine of some sort start up – after a while Caitlin said ‘Helicopter!’ and she was right, a few minutes later we saw it appear from behind the building near us and head out towards the ocean – I’d say taking a pilot out to bring a ship in. I always find it very exciting to see a helicopter suddenly appear at low altitude like that.

The walk was very well signposted and decorated and was enjoyable even at night. From the end of the road we could see the salt trucks dumping their load – once we got back to the car we drove around there to see it more closely. They opened a flap at the bottom of their triangle shaped trailers and the salt poured into a big hopper, then along a conveyor belt and up high where it was poured onto another massive hill of salt, ready to be loaded on to the ships. It was incredible to watch.

We drove back out to our campsite (having to stop once to avoid 2 large cows in the middle of the highway) and got back around 8.30. Everyone was exhausted so we went straight to bed and read a quick chapter of Inheritance.