SNORKELLING AND MORE

Our first night camping after the islands and we have to leave by 6am to get to Kalbarri for our flight to the Abrolhos Islands. Woke and packed up tent in dark and rain, not the most fun ever. Arriving for flight to find it delayed for 2 hours (could have slept in a bit), due to weather.

Not the best day for this but we had heard such a lot about these islands. In the end the coral and snorkelling were very disappointing (but flying over the rest of the islands on the way back after the weather cleared you could see what could be amazing. Need a boat (we tried to do the boat but it was full). It was a nice day but not what we expected.

Kalbarri itself had a lovely feel as a town but so much was shut from a cyclone a few months prior, many damaged buildings, sad.

Kalbarri National Park is amazing, some great walks and stunning scenery – fantastic new viewing point as long as you don’t mind heights.

https://parks.dpaw.wa.gov.au/park/kalbarri

Shark Bay and a boat trip to Dirk Hartog Island, firstly a Dugong came really close, amazing.

Coral not the best but interesting to see a Wobbygong Shark and then the 8 – 10 Manta Rays circling the boat, pretty amazing 30 mins.

A trip to Monkey Mia – so lucky, watching dolphins off the pier and one caught a baby reef shark, amazing to watch. Pity there were so many people.

We were lucky to get the last tent site in Denham caravan park – right next to entrance, huge park and very noisy.

Hamelin Pool Stromatolite’s, supposedly the most diverse in the world – unfortunately we could not see them as once we walked to the pier we did not need the notice to tell us it was shut – half of it was missing (the cyclone again).

https://www.sharkbay.org/publications/fact-sheets-guides/stromatolites/

Coral Bay, so many people, campsite packed to the hilt, but not too noisy thankfully. The best snorkelling here is by far Five Finger Reef – a 4×4 is needed to get there and the road got rougher each day. The snorkelling in Coral bay itself was also devastated by the cyclone.

Exmouth and Cape Range National Park. The best place to stay is Yardie Creek Homestead camping. Much nearer to the National Park, great view and tents get the best sites). Snorkelling is at Turquoise Bay, Oyster Stacks, Lakeside and Osprey. They are all very different in conditions and wildlife.
Our favourite was Osprey for the turtles which were so close to shore in hardly enough water to swim in and the Octopus.

There are some great walks and we enjoyed the Class 4 Mandu Mandu gorge, hoping to see rare black flanked wallabies, yah found them only to discover later they were the same as the ones in Alice Springs under a different name.

We were unable to do the King Charles Canyon as shut due to February bush fire – huge, burning over 7000 hectares. Shot hole Canyon is great but the walk here also closed, the drive in is very scenic but 4×4 needed.

Mildura wreck just off the coast is still visible but I found the best thing here was the sheer number of dragonflies, never seen so many, the air was just full of them. Wouldn’t stay still to photograph them
though.

A great day out to swim with Whale Sharks – what can I say, incredible and a must do. The sea was calm, the sun out and apparently around 12 sharks around. We swam with 2 different sharks, one around 9 metres long and the other at around 6 metres.

A trip out to the Murion Islands was in doubt when 30 mins before departure we were rung and told the captain was sick, luckily they managed to get us on another company boat.
Amazing soft corals on these islands, some of the best I have seen but would have been better to dive as they were a little deep for photographing while snorkelling. Plenty of sharks and turtles too.

https://parks.dpaw.wa.gov.au/park/cape-range

Exmouth was not what I expected (a small country tourist town), but has grown massively with huge expensive marina and many many multi million dollar houses around the marina.

Funny – Down a one way road to the water we came across a sign saying “Wildlife next 80km” but we were only 15km from the coast – maybe they thought people have amphibious vehicles.

Onslow – There is a ferry to the Mackerel Islands (snorkelling supposed to be great), but you can only get the ferry if you stay in accommodation that starts at around $700 per night. Bit out of our range. OR it was suggested to us you have your own boat, which so many WA people do.

Driving around Onslow we went looking for birds but found instead the Wharf being bulldozed to build new. (As is seemingly everything in WA). Not much of the old town left but the old police ruins were interesting.

The issue was that the area was a big area for Finches, Zebra and Star particularly. Now only 1 tree is left with at least a dozen Zebra nests in it.
While there 2 Ravens came down and under the finches noses invaded all the nests and ate the eggs and chicks with the poor finches squawking at them. So hard when there are not enough trees and it is so open to the other birds.

Millstream Chichester National Park – 20km of the worst road ever when you first get off the highway.
Still the park was pretty amazing. Some great walks – unfortunately the one we were really keen on (short but birdy) was closed – wet season washed away boardwalk.

I have never seen so many miles and miles of spinifex with little other vegetation. Wear long pants on the walks as spinifex is very prickly. The walk along an old camel route from Mount Herbert to McKenzie Springs is great. Although the springs were a little disappointing it was just amazing in all the hills of spinifex how this water hole was found. Python Pool is a great little spot – get there early if you want it to yourselves.

There are lookouts and short to medium walks around the campsites and a huge river for swimming – if you don’t mind sharing with thousands of catfish.

From Millstream to get to Karijini National Park, you can
drive the long way or do an online course to get approval to drive the rail line road (RIO TINTO), this was the best
way to go and also fascinating as driving for miles along the rail line we watched the iron ore trains. 300 Carriages long (2km) and going every 10 minutes while we were there. Incredible amount of ore. Twice we had to cross the line, quite a wait….

Karijini is quite different to Millstream, many gorges and good walks. Very steep up and down, often having to rock hop streams. We did not find their grading quite the same as we would, thinking some Grade 4 were worse than some Grade 5 (worst of their grades) and some Grade 4 were easy as. Still we don’t know what their criteria is for grading walks. The brochures about the walks are a little confusing as they are advertised as if all walks are separate, this was not the case with most being off shoots of others. This meant that we thought we would need to stay 3 – 4 days to do all the walks but in the end 1.5 is plenty. Well worth it, very scenic and each gorge is very different. Not huge on birds or wildlife though, nor was Millstream.
Seemed odd to us with all the permanent water holes etc.

https://www.australia.com/en/places/perth-and-surrounds/guide-to-karijini-national-park.html

Next on route of interest was Gwalia Ghost Town. The little settlement that grew up around the Sons of Gwalia Mine in the late 1890s thrived until the final whistle blew on 28 December 1963, closing the mine and putting 250 men out of work. Gwalia’s 1200-strong population fell to just 40 in less than three weeks. To see how many people lived until so recently was interesting – although compared with many miners in Kalgoorlie (who only had a barrow and slept on the ground, last ground sleeper 1990), these buildings were fairly luxurious.

To us though, no draught proofing, inside walls only hessian. Would have been so cold in winter and boiling
in summer.

https://www.gwalia.org.au/

The most surprising fact was the part U.S. President Herbert Hoover had to play in this mine as Mine Superintendent.

https://www.gwalia.org.au/about/history-of-gwalia/herbert-hoover.aspx

Kalgoorlie – Great golf course, the last of the Nullarbor Plains Golf holes. We were not expecting
much as have heard many negatives about the area but found it quite fascinating. The Goldfields Museum was good, and well worth while. The narrow English Pub, the old Opulent Board Rooms and much more.

So many businesses were advertising for staff, skilled and unskilled. Can not understand when so many
unemployed.
We were lucky to be there on the 1 Sunday in a month when they do a free SuperPit tour – not something I would have done if we had to pay but was surprisingly fascinating. It is worth paying, but you don’t know that in advance. Still, I am not sure how environmental it all is, gold is mostly used for un-necessary purposes according to the environmental posters in the museum, but the cost on the environment of producing it (trucks, tyres, diesel and so the list goes on).

https://www.superpit.com.au/about/

We were talked into a tour at Questa Casa (the oldest working brothel in Australia, sometime prior to 1880) by the visitor centre. I was very dubious but they were very persuasive. They were right and it was not at all as expected but surprisingly interesting about the history and the changes over the years.

One stop on the way back of note was Pildappa Rock – this is SA’s version of WA’s Wave Rock. Very impressive too. You can climb up and view the surrounding scenery. The rock itself is about 100 meters long and 30 wide.

https://southaustralia.com/products/eyre-peninsula/attraction/pildappa-rock