Half-lap Day 103: The Nullarbor

I got up just after sunrise and it was cold and beautiful outside the tent, the early morning sun shining on the few trees and over the low bushes surrounding the campsite. I went for a bit of a walk to find more firewood, there were a couple of dead trees not far from us and I was able to find plenty of branches around them that would get the fire going again for the morning.

I sat near the fire for a while and then as people woke up, got breakfast ready and we started to pack up. Everyone was cold and wanted to sit near the fire, which helped us feel warmer and may have slowed down our packing a bit. We were ready to go around 10.30, the last (by a few minutes) people to leave the campground.

We continued eastward along the longest straight stretch of road in Australia. There was a slight slope to parts of it, so we could only see 5 or 10km ahead, and when it was flat, the road shimmered out of sight in the distance, so we didn’t ever feel like we got a strong visual sense of how long it was – but it did take a long time to drive, without a bend. It wasn’t boring though, the scenery was fascinating, sometimes low, sparsely scattered trees, sometimes plains of low bushes, all very dry and inhospitable looking, but always quite pretty. It was exciting to get to the end and have the road bend a little. There weren’t a lot of bends over the course of the day – mainly the road was straight with the occasional meander to one side or the other. Therre wasn’t a lot of traffic either,  some road trains and caravans coming the other way, and occasionally another truck or van going our way, often we were the only vehicle we could see.

Part of the longest straight stretch of road

Not long after we started driving we saw a dead camel by the side of the road – our first wild camel sighting and we all felt it was a sad way to start. About 2 hours later we saw live camels, four of them to the right of the road,  in an area with no trees. We pulled over and watched them for a while, very excited to tick another desired animal off our list. Later on I saw a pair of emus – the kids didn’t see them though so we hoped that we would see more as we kept driving.

Camels

Around 2pm we were approaching Madura, and saw a sign to a lookout. I think this is the place someone told me about, way back in Hahndorf, so I suggested we pull over. It was a fairly bumpy road in to the lookout, and then the view was incredible. The road sloped down quite steeply just after the turn off to the lookout, and below us was the Nullarbor Plain – flat land for as far as we could see, with low, silvery green bushes and grass, and the occasional tree scattered all the way across. From where we stood the trees looked like emus – rounded green tops with thin trunks. To the north of the plain, looking straight ahead in the direction of the road, was a large escarpment – I had no idea that it even existed. From the lookout we could hear, and then see as they came past, the road trains and the caravans laboring up the hill as they headed west.

View from Madura lookout

We had lunch while we were stopped, then drove down the hill ourselves, onto the plain. The road followed the escarpment for the rest of the day. The terrain was similar all the way, with the occasional stand of taller gum trees (not tall, but not the tiny trees that were over most of the plain. Many of the rest stops had these taller trees. 

Once again the sun was setting fast as we drove away from it. We had hoped to get to the border, or at least close to it, today – however there was a strong vote for stopping at a rest stop with a toilet, and the last toilet was at Jilah Rockhole, about 70km before the border. We arrived there about 4pm and found a nice clearing between trees and set up the tent – the sun was close to setting by the time the tent was up so it was good timing. We wandered through the trees to find wood for a fire, finding a pile left by someone at one of the spots near the back (again, it was a very large camping area, with lots of relatively private spots because of the trees) and Tony found some wood he could cut with his axe. Caitlin had a bit of a scare as we loaded wood onto her bike – 2 wolf spiders were nestled together in a hollow in one piece of wood, and it took a while before we found them on the ground (after we flung the wood away) to make sure that neither of them were still on her bike.

We got the fire going and I made a cup of tea, while Tony cooked dinner. I hung some washing so it could start to dry in the morning, and Caitlin went for a ride to see if she could find anyone heading west so that she could give them our leftover onions – we can’t take fruit and veg into South Australia and we’d used all the onions we could manage. We also had carrots and apples left and felt confident we could eat them in the morning.

Caitlin had finished reading the 8^th Harry Potter book in the morning, and I got it out to start reading. While I did the washing LiAM started to read it and made his way through most of the first scene – that’s all 3 kids who have started to read by reading a Harry Potter book.

Caitlin hadn’t come back when our sausage and egg burgers were ready, so LiAM and I went to find her. She was talking to couple from the Central Coast, who were travelling west and had taken our onions gratefully, and as usual we shared tips on places we’d been and things to do. We walked back over and had our dinner and enjoyed sitting around the fire.

The toilet was interesting – a drop toilet, not surprisingly, but with a very narrow hole leading from the bowl down into the pit underneath. Normally with the narrow hole, the toilet has a water pump that lets a small amount of water be run down the bowl after use, or a bucket of water with disinfectant in it and a toilet brush that can be used to clean the bowl. This one had neither – just a stick (an old broom handle) that could be used to poke down anything that hadn’t made it through the narrow hole. It was pretty gross, and seemed to get worse every time we went in there. I’ve recommended to my friends who are following us across the Nullarbor in the next week or so that they don’t bother stopping here just because it has a toilet…

We heated up our hot water bottles on the fire and snuggled into bed, with beanies and socks and neck warmers, to read Inheritance, which is getting extremely exciting.

Half-lap Day 92: Shark Bay

The wind blew all night, and while the tent flapped around a bit we were fairly well protected in our little corner and we didn’t ever worry that things would blow away. It was our coldest morning in a very long time, we were rugged up for breakfast and even when the sun was up it was still quite chilly.

We had a relaxed morning at the caravan park, talking to our neighbour, patting dogs, playing with toys. The day did warm up a bit as it got later, although it didn’t get really hot. Late in the morning we got organised and went for a drive back down the peninsula, stopping first at Eagle Bluff. There was a lookout high on a cliff, looking down a sloping hillside into a bay. We’d heard that you could see sharks and rays and turtles swimming in the water down here – the wind was ruffling the top of the water quite significantly, and at first we couldn’t see anything. The water was clear underneath the rippling surface. We looked out towards Eagle Island, which was covered in birds, and noticed a dark shape swimming in the water nearby. We watched it cover the channel between the island and the shore, and as it got closer we could clearly see that it was a shark. It was clearer at times as it swum close to the surface, then just a dark shape again when it was lower in the water. We watched it for quite a while, once again amazed at its elegance in the water. We walked along a boardwalk that followed the cliff top, read the interpretive signs, and looked out for more marine life. We could see brown shapes, a lot of them, moving along one channel in the water, but couldn’t see anything clearly, we think were probably rays. LiAM and I saw another black shape moving near some seagrass – we watched it for a while, then it stopped and seemed to be feeding on the bottom. We used my telephoto lens, LiAM’s binoculars and another couple’s stronger binoculars, but couldn’t get a clear view of what it might be. We thought it could be a large turtle and thought at one point we saw patterning – but it didn’t ever come up for air, even when it started moving again. We watched it for a while longer and eventually thought it might be a ray – some of them are patterned. We tore ourselves away eventually and walked back down the boardwalk, seeing a few more shapes in the bay – exciting even if we weren’t sure what they were. Tony had made some sandwiches while LiAM and I were still watching the water, so we had some lunch before moving on.

From there we drove down to Shell Beach. Millie wasn’t very keen on more sightseeing, we convinced her to come and have a look though and she really did love it. There was a large expanse of what looked like sand, between the edge of the foliage and the edge of the water. It was ridged, like sand dunes, and as we walked over it we discovered that it was mainly shells. The shells here were broken up and we could see bits of sand mixed with them, if we dug down a bit deeper though there were only shells. When we reached the slope that led down to the water, the surface of the ground was completely covered in shells, mainly whole. The water was clear and a bit choppy due to the wind. It is possible to swim here (although the water is very salty) – there were lots of jellyfish blobbing around in the water though so we didn’t go in. We sat on the beach and ran our hands through the shells – they are mainly little cockle shells, and at first glance they all seemed to be the same, white and the same cockle shape. As we sifted through them though we discovered lots of different colours – shades of white, pink, yellow, grey, orange – and shapes – conical shells, bigger and smoother shells, and lots of different sizes. We made a collection of all the different types we could find and laid them out on an area that LiAM cleared of shells. Our favourite was a glossy pinkish spiral shell, with silvery lines through it. Caitlin lay in the shells and had me bury her in them, all except her head, which looked pretty strange. They were deep enough to treat them like sand and make big piles or holes, and it felt really cool to run our fingers through them. It was interesting to watch too, as people came to the beach many of them just lay down on the shells like we were, just enjoying the sunlight and the view across the water and the feel of the shells.

We decided to checkout Whalebone campground on our way back, which is where the people we met yesterday had seen the dugongs. Millie stayed in the car, she’d had enough by now, while Caitlin, LiAM and I wandered down to the shore and along the rocks. We didn’t see any dugongs but it was a beautiful bay, with headlands either side. Tony walked up to the top of one of the headlands and we joined him. Looking across the water was cool, seeing the darker patches where the seagrass was and getting a feel for how big the bay is – we couldn’t see land if we looked to the southeast, where the bay ends.

Once we got back to our tent I had a nap, the warm afternoon and several early mornings had me feeling quite sleepy. I hung out in the tent after I woke up, catching up on a few things and enjoying the quiet. The kids played with their toys in the annex and wandered around the caravan park patting dogs and chatting to people. The wind had died down a bit by now and it wasn’t quite as cold. Tony and the girls walked over to the supermarket and Caitlin found the clearance shelf, she was keen for me to go back and have a look at it with her. We had dim sims and mashed potatoes for tea and then got ready for bed, reading for a while before falling asleep more easily now that the tent wasn’t flapping in the wind.

Half-Lap Day 79: Karajini

I was awake before the sky started to lighten. I did some karate practice in the dark (I haven’t done much for a while, it always helps me feel so much more centred and I’m glad that I’ve started it up again) and then walked down to the lookout above Fortescue Falls to watch the sunrise. I took a cup of tea with me and was the only person around. I had a couple of crows for company and other than that it was still and quiet everywhere.

It was a cloudy morning and the sky to the east was soon filled with oranges and pinks. I was facing south and could see the edge of the gorge and the hills beyond, to the south and west, becoming clearer in the morning light. I didn’t know if I’d get any sunlight, then the tips of the hills started to glow yellow. The light slowly moved down the hillside and soon it was not far from the top of the gorge. As I watched the rim of the gorge lit up and then I could actually see the edge of the sunlight creeping down the cliff wall, it was amazing. Soon the sun reached the cloud cover and the shadow started to creep down the wall like it was following the edge of the light. It didn’t take long for the gorge to be all in shadow again, it was pretty cool to watch. The falls looked beautiful throughout the whole process – the sunlight didn’t reach down that far at this early hour, but I think it could get there later in the day if there were no clouds.

I walked back to camp and started to get breakfast for people. LiAM and Caitlin were up as they were hoping to go walking with our Kings Canyon friends. I packed a bag for them and made sure they were fed, then wandered over to our friends’ site to see what the plan was. She was happy to take the older 2 with her to walk down into Hancock Gorge, and Millie and Tony and I would meet them over there for lunch, then we’d walk Weano Gorge together. These other gorges are about an 80km drive away, we have to leave the National Park and drive west, then enter the park at the other side. There is a quicker road through the park, but it is 4WD only, so we’d be taking the sealed road. I asked if Millie’s friend wanted to stay with us for the morning, she wanted to go and do the walk with the others instead.

They came over once they were ready and Millie’s friend said she would stay and play with Millie, then at the last minute changed her mind and wanted to go with her mum and do the walk. Millie was pretty upset and we had a big cuddle on our double chair until she felt like playing again. Tony played with her for a while, on the iPad and with her animals, while I got the 3 of us ready for the day. Tony put up the annex in case it rained while we were out – best to have the tent door in the dry area, and have somewhere dry to put our chairs and things.

We stopped off at the rubbish trailer to dump our bags of rubbish (so glad we don’t have to take them all with us to dump at the next town) and then drove to the other end of the park. Millie played on the iPad and Tony and I listened to music from his iPod, it was great to have music playing again. I’m loving listening to the Harry Potter books, I’d forgotten how much I love listening to music when I’m in the car, especially on long drives. We listened to a bit of Radiohead then put it on shuffle and got a bit of everything.

As we drove and I was looking at the large hills to the south, I was once again wondering which one was Mt Bruce. We drove around a slight bend and Tony said ‘I’m guessing it’s that one…’ and there was a much larger, stand alone mountain that was obviously the tallest in the region. We could see the mine behind it as well. I’d vaguely considered climbing Mt Bruce (a 6 hour walk) – looking at it I could see that the vegetation was pretty low and sparse, so there’d be no shade for most of the walk, not really worth it on this trip I think!

Heading back into the National Park the road was good (and still sealed) for a while, although had a few areas that had recently been damaged by floods. There was rain as we drove into the park and we thought we might not be able to walk in any of the gorges – but it cleared as we headed further in and we were fine. We reached the unsealed part and it was pretty good too until after the Eco Resort, then it became more corrugated. There was 13km of dirt and we drove it very very slowly otherwise everything in the car rattled and bounced and it hurt our heads. Most of the time there wasn’t any part of the road that was easier to drive on. It was quite exhausting, even for me as the passenger. Tony really didn’t enjoy it.

There was a car behind us and we soon realised it was the others, so we arrived at the lookout at the same time. We got out and had lunch, and we could see gorges all around us (on 3 sides). The kids had loved the walk into Joffre Gorge, had done it in half the advertised time, and had a cold swim at the bottom as well as walking or swimming around to Joffre Falls and standing under them. LiAM’s camera seemed to be suffering a bit from having been in the very cold water – it can go underwater but was having condensation problems from the changes in temperature, so he was a bit worried about that.

As we put our stuff back in the fridge after lunch Tony discovered that the fuse in the cord had blown again. We didn’t have a spare as the parts place where we bought the replacement only had that one in stock. We tossed up what to do and decided to buy some ice at the Eco Retreat on the way home, freeze our freezer packs in our friend’s fridge overnight, and just use the fridge as an esky for the 2 days until we go through Tom Price on our way west.

We walked out to the lookouts, stopping at Junction Pool lookout first. Nearby there was a cross, a memorial to an SES worker called Jimmy Regan, who had drowned in a flash flood trying to rescue some walkers. The kids were fascinated to see my surname on the memorial and wanted to know if he was a relative (not as far as I know). The gorge dropped away very suddenly and was 100m deep. I approached the lookout very cautiously, there were 3 gorges branching off from underneath the lookout and the vertigo started a fair way back from the edge. It got worse the closer I got, as I still couldn’t see the bottom! Eventually I did make it to the railing and the view was magnificent. There was a pool directly down below the lookout, with a large column of rocks rising from it that was only attached to the gorge wall for about half way up, the top was leaning way from the edge. At the base of the column the gap between walls was very narrow, and there was another pool on the other side of the gap. The water was flowing through the gap and continuing on past the pool down one of the gorges. The opposite gorge wall was reflected in the pool beyond the column, and at first glance that seemed to be where the bottom of the column was as well – but that was only halfway to the base of those rocks, it was a long way down from there to the narrow gap. It was a weird illusion and messed with all our heads a bit. I had to keep looking up to the horizon from time to time to stop from feeling dizzy, but I was able to stay out there for a while, soaking in the incredible sight of all these gorges, carved out of 2,500 million year old stone. This is the oldest stone we’ve seen and the whole scene was awe inspiring.

We all walked around to the Oxer lookout and could see another 2 gorges as well as the 3 we’d already been looking at. Again the view was incredible (and a little scary). The boys pointed out to me that the lookout we’d been standing on was suspended beyond the edge of the cliff wall – I’m glad I didn’t know that when I was first there, but it didn’t bother me in retrospect. I was even able to go back out there later and not worry about it. The younger girls were playing in the middle of the look out and it amused and impressed me that in the midst of this amazing panorama they’d just settled in to being together and playing their games like they wanted to. I love how they live so completely in the moment and don’t worry about what they ‘should’ be doing base on anyone else’s standards.

From there we drove up to the day use area and used the toilets, then the 9 of us set off to walk down into Weano Gorge. Millie had forgotten her runners so Tony went back to the car to get them, and the others went ahead. We walked down fairly steep but easy rock steps to reach the bottom of the gorge, then followed the water along the gorge floor. We soon caught up to the others. Twice we reached points where we had to either hold on to the rock face and walk sideways around the protruding rock (not too hard because of the flat, terraced rocks again) or take our shoes off and walk through the water. Most of us did a combination of the two, and walked barefoot for most of the rest of the track so weren’t constantly taking our shoes on and off. Other water crossings had stepping stones so our feet didn’t get wet.

Edging around the rocks and walking through the water

We reached a point where the gorge narrowed considerably – the trail changed here from a Class 4 to a Class 5. Talking to people who were coming back the other way, we decided to leave our bags here, and change into our swimmers if we were considering swimming. The kids and the other adults went barefoot, I decided to put my shoes back on as I’m really not confident on slippery rock. I left my camera behind too, I wanted to be carrying nothing so I could concentrate on balance. Tony and the others had gone ahead, and LiAM and I followed last.

The trail here followed the creek down between the gorge walls, which were now only about 1.5m apart. There was room on the edge of the water to put our feet so that they didn’t get wet, if we were careful. It wasn’t too hard but required concentration. LiAM was ahead of me and rounding a slight bend said ‘ooh Mummy, I don’t think you’re going to like this…’ I followed him around and saw what he meant (although I’d been expecting it so wasn’t too freaked out) – there was a handrail attached to the wall for the last part of the narrow chasm, and then the water and the ground dropped away and we couldn’t see what was below it. I asked LiAM to go slowly so I could still see him, and we gradually made our way to the handrail and then could see beyond. There was a very tricky corner to navigate as the gorge walls opened up again and ground dropped away into a waterfall. Once I could see it I told LiAM to go ahead and I’d take my own time. It was slippery but there were places to stand, and the handrail made it steady and safe enough. Once around the corner there were stones jutting out of the wall so that we could climb down the almost sheer wall, holding on to the handrail. I was pretty scared coming around the corner, but made it easily, then going down the wall was hard but not too scary.

Path to Handrail Pool

At the bottom was a beautiful round pool, with the cliff walls rising all around it, the waterfall splashing into it at the end we’d entered, and another narrow chasm leading off from the other side. Along one edge there were terraced rocks so we could walk around that side quite safely and reach the water’s edge. Caitlin had been in by the time I arrived, and I joined her. It was cold and it took me a while to become completely submerged – colder than the Circular pool I think, although a fantastic place to swim. I got straight out and felt rather warm, then decided to go for a bit more of a swim. Caitlin and I swam across the pool to a beachy sort of area (shallow water with small stones slowly sloping down on the far side of the pool) where the others were wading. It felt great to be swimming around in here and really experiencing the location. The boys and Tony came in as well.

The little girls wanted to climb back up the handrail and back down because it was fun – they climbed up and our friend took some photos of all the kids on the handrail – they wanted to go back around the corner but I said no, not just for fun, we could do it on the way out. A couple who we’d seen at Fern Pool yesterday were there as well – they’d been down into the further chasm, all the way to the end of the allowed trail. Caitlin wanted to go but they said it got very narrow and dark and cold and they had to swim most of the way. Tony went a little way down and said that the kids could join him there so LiAM and Caitlin went on. I stayed standing in the water in case they needed help getting out – it was cold staying still so I tried to move around a bit, then found a rock to sit on which was more comfortable. The kids headed back after a while and Tony went all the way to the stop sign, he said it wasn’t too hard and a bit exciting. He saw the top of a waterfall and it looked like it would be scary beyond that.

LiAM had had a couple of slips on the rocks and was feeling scared coming back so I swam into the chasm to help him. I saw something that looked like a twisted rope on a ledge in the rocks then realised it was probably a snake (checked it out later and it was most likely a python). I pointed it out to LiAM and he panicked a bit and fell into the water again. I swam out with him hanging on to my back, and we clambered over the rocks at the chasm entrance then quickly out of the water. Our friend and all the kids started heading back up as they wanted to do one more walk, Millie and I waited for Tony and we left not far behind the others. I was a bit scared about getting back around the top corner but I took my time and did it without incident.

We got dry and changed – I was shivering pretty hard – and headed back along the gorge, LiAM and behind the others and he soon ran ahead to catch up. I trudged along at my own pace – my hamstrings had started to cramp again in the cold water and I was feeling a bit sore now. I caught up with the other couple at one of the water crossings and walked out with them. It didn’t take long, and Tony and Millie were waiting for me at the top. The rest of our group had gone to to the Hancock Gorge walk, a Class 5 all the way with a Spider Walk along the bottom – another narrow part where you can walk through the water or like spiderman, with hands and feet on either side of the chasm (I’d done a bit of the handrail trail like that). Millie and Tony and walked back towards the lookouts as I’d seen one from the Handrail pool and wanted to look down at the pool – we couldn’t find the lookout though, and ended up back at Junction Pool and Oxer lookouts. We enjoyed the view again then walked back to the car, and headed our bumpy way back out to the Eco Retreat.

We drove in and were able to buy ice from the café (for $10!!!) and put that in our fridge. We waited there for the others, as Millie’s friend wanted to come back in our car. There were a group of French girls there who had had an accident that morning and their car was written off, they were looking for accommodation for the night and we were relieved to hear that someone had lent them a spare tent.

Millie had an ice block while we waited, and when the others arrived our friend bought me a hot chocolate as a thank you for waiting in the cold. The kids had all done really well on the walk, and Caitlin and the oldest boy had had another swim in more very cold water. There were some very tricky bits in this gorge and they’d had to walk or swim through water quite a bit. LiAM wasn’t tall enough to do the spider walk and hadn’t gone all the way to the end with Caitlin and their friend, but he’d enjoyed the bit he’d done. Three hard gorges in one day – that’s so impressive, although the kids didn’t think it was that big a deal.

Millie’s friend came back in our car and they played I-Spy for a while then watched a DVD. Our other kids went back in the other car. We drove home in the dark, with a full moon popping out from behind the clouds occasionally. We got phone signal as we drove past the mine and received a couple of texts before it dropped out again. Back at the tent the other kids stayed with us while their Mum cooked tea, then she walkie-talkied to tell them it was ready and they walked back. Millie was thrilled to finally have a good play with her toys and her friend today.

We had soup and noodles for dinner then got ready for bed. I read a couple of chapters of Inheritance and everyone was asleep fairly easily after an extremely exhausting day.