Blogs from Cape Le Grande National Park, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania

This week has been mostly about getting from A to B, day after day. It has involved some long distances and some very close attention to the fuel gauge at times. After leaving Murray Town, we went straight through Port Augusta without stopping Geoff falsely assuming there would be a fuel stop on the western side of the town... Unfortunately that assumption was not the best one, but we then thought there would be fuel at a place called Iron Knob, a town of some size. Wrong again, after turning onto the Eyre Highway some 30 kms away from Port Augusta we were greeted with a sign that said the next fuel stop was just on 200 kms further on. Now that was really not good news, but there was no turning back. We dribbled along ... read more

After spending two nights at a secluded rest area just west of Walpole, Linda and I began the second week of our West Coast road-trip (Monday 4thMay) by taking a scenic detour through more of the South-West's famous towering forests (along the aptly-named Valley of the Giants Road) before venturing back to the coast to visit the small but spectacular William Bay NP. On a sunny day this might have been the highlight of our trip so far, as we first encountered the delightful Green's Pool - where a scattering of huge granite boulders encloses a picturesque lagoon, perfectly sheltered from the Southern Ocean swells that batter most other parts of the coast – before rounding a headland, descending a flight of steps and squeezing through a narrow gap in the rock to see the Elephant ... read more

Kalgoorlie, we know we are getting close when we see all the mine sites along the highway, twin cabs race two and fro, passing our modern day caravansai of three vans, and the babble of voices on our two way as they pass by.Then it sounds like someone is out the back of a mine site, looking for his own “nugget”. It's hard to imagine that out there in all that red dirt the gold is just sitting there, waiting to be found! Haha. Gold fever has set in.(We tried out the metal detector, but no luck!)We find our van park and settle in. First stop the laundry, we haven’t washed any clothes for a week so there’s plenty to do. The showers are great, the last one we had was on the Nullabor, do you ... read more

We had heard a lot of good reports of Lucky Bay and it certainly didn’t disappoint! A beautiful calm bay with amazing granite boulders on one side and sweeping sand hills on the other. Again the sand is the whitest of whites and the water so clear. The camp ground is busy but we find a nice spot with a view of the bay to set up camp. We are immediately greeted by several kangaroos who we decided must be the Campground Hosts. We settled in and then went for a walk to explore the rock pools and amazing granite formations of Lucky Bay. The morning saw mals removed from bags, wetsuits on and a paddle out to explore the coast line from the water. There was plenty of fish and sea life to be discovered ... read more

Arriving on a beautiful warm day, Lucky Bay was one of the most picturesque places we have visited on our trip so far. A long clean beach with squeaky fine white sand, small perfectly formed waves, freshwater streams to the water’s edge, impressive rock outcrops and azure blue water made it a scene to behold. Only problems were the 50 million flies per person. Wish we had fly nets like the ones Yvonne, Chris and other workers in this south western corner of the country seem quite happy to wear. We were guilty of stripping a small twig from a bush to use as a fly swat. This proved better than no protection at all. The shorts came out of the cupboard again as the temperature soared to 33 degrees. Forgetting the wisdom of not hiking ... read more