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Published: August 8th 2007
Our first stop, and first caravan park, was in Cervantes where the ancient Pinnacles stand. They're basically limestone pillars ranging from a few cm to a few metres in height scattered across the desert. Quite impressive actually. And while wandering among the pinnacles we encountered our first emus! Which we of course chased to take photos of. We gave our first go at fishing off a pier in Jurien Bay with no luck, as we watched the other fishermen just pull them in, but I reckon they were cheating using burley, but we're getting excited about catching dinner one day none the less.
Next area of interest was the Hutt River Province Principality, which I'm sure most people have never heard of. Where a farmer, now Prince Leonard, successfully seceded from the Commonwealth of Australia through a legal loophole because he was unhappy with the wheat quottas the government was setting. So literally in the middle of nowhere, lies Prince Leonard's Hutt River Province It was quite a sight for our first interaction with royalty, not too swank in the plaid though. The Hutt River has it's own passports, money, coat of arms, stamps etc. and the residents do not
have to pay any taxes to the government of Australia (but they also don't any healthcare coverage). It was just too weird that it was a couple of shacks on a dusty plot of land and a little church (where they had just knighted someone the week prior). And just to add the peculariarity, the Prince is quite into "alternative healing methods" with crystals. The most exciting part was that Clay and I got to sit in the royal thrones, rare oppurtunity indeed! Have to see this place to believe it.
Onto Kalbarri from there, a lovely little fishing town on the water, which is mainly geared toward tourists these days with it's proximity to the beach. On the way to Kalbarri we got to view some of the expansive rugged coastline, where the Indian Ocean just crashes into the steep cliffs below, providing us with excellent views of eroded cliffs and massive rocks its left behind. In Kalbarri we did the 8km walk into and around the gorge. It was good except for the millions of flies that circled us and tried to get into every orifice they could. I believe we both had at least one that
went for gold straight up the nose. Ahh the great outdoors!
We decided to make the trip to Denham and then to Monkey Mia, where basically people only go to see the dolphin feeding...which of course we had to see. Every morning about a dozen dolphins come into shore and the staff at the resort feed them a certain amount of fish. It was great seeing them frolick and come so close to us, and many of them had little calves with them, so that was quite a treat. They started the feeding program in the 60's because many of the fishermen would feed the dolphins fish scraps and such, so they got into somewhat of a habit of begging at the boats. They brought them to shore instead because they were getting hurt by boat propellers. A few of the older female dolphins actually had huge scars from shark bites on them which was pretty crazy, but apparently they heal quite fast.
So our journey has started Hutt River Province with some pretty nice sights that's for sure. The west coast is abundant with different wildlife and landscapes that will mezmorize you most of the way. Except
for parts of the highway of course...which for some time is just a straight road with little bushels of spinifex grass as far as the eye could see. This is fall asleep at the wheel kinda territory, but the occasional (sometimes frequent) woft of decomposing roo will certainly wake you up! I have never seen so much roadkill in my life, we've probably seen more dead animals than live ones come to think of it. There are so many stray animals in this country that unfortunatley it's quite inevitable, we'll just do our best not to contribute to that one!
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