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In Cape Range NP
I love this pic, check the Galahs and Roos waiting for us to go so they can get some of this brackish bore hole water! Point Of No Return, Sharp Bay, Gorgeous Geology, Oresome, Big Beach, Broom Broom…
(Disclamer: Written on two different PC,s one with and one without spell check, guess which bit on which!)
Well we managed the decision after a long map and LP study, were so far how could we not do the full circle, it would be a sin, plus I would not want to disappoint my lovely readers!
So we left the intrepid Duo in Exmouth having survived swimming with an 8 meter shark. We leave our paradise and our dreams with heavy hearts, but as the wind leaves us we have a lot of driving to do and sooooo much to see.
Our stop after the Cape Range National Park is a little costal resort 300k’s south of Exmouth called Coral Bay, were here to pickup Jimmys post and say goodbye to the ocean for a few days, which we do in the time honerd fassion of a sunset kite and dawn snorkel.
We kite Coral Bay the evening we arrive, its low tide, the bay is beautiful the sea is warm, there are bikined beauties everywhere, so we pump up our flying gear
and hit the water. Jimmy is out first and as I leave the beach he passes me and shouts something like ‘it’s a bit reefy’, I head of into the sunset getting some upwind, and its not till I make a turn back towards the beach and away from the sun that is see what he means. The low tide has revealed the Coral reef that is most places is 5 inches below my board, a few coral ‘bommies’ just touch the surface, I can see clown fish looking at me as I pass.
Needless to say this caused me some concern, I still do a few faceplants once and a while and the stag horn coral looks pretty sharp. This becomes a really careful short session with only a couple of scrapes as my fins hit reef, until I get caught by a nasty gust and lull and end up in the water. As I sort my kite out and get ready to go I drift onto a bit of dead reef and a loud scrape indicates a bit of coral piercing my board! Time to head in while before I get epically lacerated. Shout have realised by the
Coral Bay takes no prisoners!
My board taking some punishment at the hands of Neptune. name of this place, but there you go, where Barnett’s dare!
We turn our backs on the Indian ocean for a few days to visit the Hammersly Ranges and the Karajini national park in the shire of Pilbara. (twice the size of England!) These heavily eroded hematite ranges feature some of the most amazing gorge geology in the world, rivers from the cyclonic rain systems find their way into tectonic faults cutting deep into the layered rock. The convoluted layers of morphed sandstone are rich in Iron Ore so the layering of rock is magnificent and so visible (check the piccys) the different layers also erode at different rates making this waterfall country. We get many chances to walk in these cool fresh gorges, to swim in cool fresh water pools and get pummelled by 25meter waterfalls. This area is so Gorgeous (sorry), I have to tell it in images.
We make one very surreal stop at Whitternoon the ‘ghost town’ that was built to feed a nearby Asbestos mine, the town of nearly 10’000 was wiped out by a in explicable epidemic of lung cancer! There are a few permant residents now who survive on the ultra
low land prices, one of whom we met and was appropreately terrifid by. Her name is Dawn and she is a 50something year old Active with a capital A Comunist, we were throughly preached to and panfletted upon meeting her.
The town itself is realy depressing, most of the houses have been recycled so all that remains is the infastructure, a grassy area with streets and signs, lamp posts, pavements, power lines, just no houses!
We try to get to see the old Asbestos mine up in the hills but maybe fate interveens as the road is totally washed away from the previous Cyclone season.
After Karajini its on north to the massive Port Headland, where the strip mines that operate in and around the park take their Iron Ore for export. The town itself can only be described as An Industrial Shit Hole, its totally domminated by the BHP Iron Ore terminal, the ramshackle streets end in huge piles of Lump Ore, everyone in town works for BHP they all where boiler suits wherever they go. The red Ore dust is on everything and everywhere, here they call it ‘Pilbara Pink’ but after blowing my nose and seeing
Dales George...
Mother Earths Reflection Pool. the color of the result I call it Fucking Nasty.
We take a tour of the BHP plant that cost AS$6 Billion to build, it’s the biggest export port by tonnage in Australia, and last year it was the biggest Iron Ore exporter in the world with 80% going to China. The port and facilites are fed by the worlds longest private railway, with trains averageing about 3k’s long this in itself is prity Awesome. As we tour the port surounded by intimidateingly huge infastructure I cant help but wonder how the Hammersly Range can survive such wanton rape on such a mindboggleingly massive scale. Three ships are loaded every day each taking some 100’000+ Tonns of ore, the plant opperates 24/7 only stopping when a Cyclone comes through and they have to tie down all the big diggers and dump trucks!
We depart Port Headland after less than 24 hours with foot hard to the floor, a haze of Pilbara Pink in our wake. North we follow Eighty Mile Beach (another classicly original Ozzy nameing), we stop for lunch on the beach with hopes of wind, but alas not so much as a Knott, so on we go
Weno George...
We swam in this pool near our campsite, fresh but magic. to the next big Tourist destination, Broome.
We arive to a magnificant sunset on the famous Cable Beach, indescribably magnificant. A little board of camping and in need of chargeing and washing we get lodging in a Backpackers then go out for a quiet drink. Several hours later were in a beachside club watching a wet T-Shirt compitition, shit happens.
While were hopeing to kite the famous Cable Beach I dout the wind will grace us with its presence in anything more than the most tantlising quantites. So we plan some fishing, some beach bumming, a little history and a lot of sun. My god its hot here, 42c and its only 10:30am god I wish I didn’t have a hangover, im sweating like a Rapeist in a Retirement home, time for a cold smothie and then some sushi in Broome’s famous China Town, if I can find it.
Adios.
p.s.Thanks for the messages particularly Rosie, H, N Ems.
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CB
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Mount Bruce eh!
Australia Australia Australia, we love you!