Llew Wanders the World

When last I wrote, I was just getting off the Indian Pacific train in Perth, preparing to head up the west coast with Grant and Bec, a couple from Victoria, Australia. This was something of a change to my plans.

Western Australia is big. Really big. At 2.5 million square kilometres, its bigger than Canada’s largest province (Quebec) by over 65%. The vast majority of this bigness lies to the north of the capital of Perth. Not only is the northern part of the state big, it’s also empty, with 1.3 million of the state’s 1.8 million inhabitants living in Perth and most of the rest of them to the south of it.

Because of this, I’d decided that I’d have to limit my travel in WA to the southern part of the state. Some of the most interesting parts lie north of Perth, but the distances are just so vast and the points of interest so far apart (and often off of the main roads) that there’s no easy way to visit them as an independent traveller. Tours are expensive, as are rental cars (and my experience in SA made me wary of them anyway.) Buses are a possibility, but schedules, and the remote nature of many attractions make using them problematic.

With all of this in mind, Grant and Bec’s offer of a spot in their car while they spent a week driving up the coast as they moved to the mining town of Port Hedland was nothing short of miraculous. Not only were they offering me a “free tour” of the west coast, they were inviting a guest along on the first real holiday they’d ever had together. Hooray once again for the kindness of strangers!

With just a bit of rearranging the contents of their car, we soon had my pack and walking stick stowed and were ready to hit the road.

Our first stop wasn’t far afield at all: Perth’s Scarborough Beach. I’d soon discover that Grant was a big fan of beaches, which, of course, presented no problems for me at all. Despite the fact that we arrived there not long after 10:00 in the morning, the beach was abuzz with activity on this already hot and sunny day. Surfers dotted the water, taking turns sliding in on the sizable but still swimable surf. Bathers frolicked happily and noisily in the water. Sunbathers had already covered a significant chunk of the sand, as did a promotion tent of a surfwear manufacturer livening up the morning with running commentary on the steady flow of bikini clad women who’d come by to pick up free surfing DVDs.

A stroll along the beach featured all this and more. With this display of beautiful weather, wonderful turquoise water and soft white sand, I was already liking WA.

Before long, it was time to hit the road and head north. At this point I took up the navigator’s seat and successfully lead us out of Perth and onto the Great Northern Highway. I’d continue my navigational duties for the remainder of the trip, but as became rapidly apparent, there would be little navigating to do.

One of the things that struck me most during this first day’s drive was how quickly the settled lands end once one leaves the Perth area. Within half an hour of driving there were few signs of human presence and even fewer sideroads. Within an hour there were virtually none of either.

The countryside in this part of WA was flat and dry. After passing through a semi-arid pine forest, we drove along sparsely vegetated plains. The dominant colours were brown and a sort of brownish-greyish-green. The only agriculture that seemed to be going on was olive groves and one or two vineyards. I would grow use to this, and even more Spartan landscapes in the coming days.

Our first stop was the town of Cervantes (and before you even bother asking, yes, there was a Don Quixote restaurant, a Sancho Panza tour company and a mini bus named Dulcinea as well as, I’m sure, many other references to the great Spanish writer.) Following the signs, we drove straight to the town beach and had a refreshing dip in the Indian Ocean (Grant and Bec were attempting to acclimatise to the WA heat by not using the air conditioning in their car, so it did get a bit sticky sometimes, but I certainly wasn’t going to complain.) While there, we also saw the smoke from a nearby bushfire that we’d spotted from the road.

Despite its lovely beach, Cervantes is actually most famous for the national park nearby, and specifically The Pinnacles, a geological formation found within the park.

The Pinnacles are rock spires that rise up out of the sand of the Pinnacles Desert. They range from small, tombstone sized slabs to monoliths four metres high and one or more across. These would be interesting, and worth a look even if there were only a dozen or so. But there are more. Many more. Thousands in fact. The bizarre formations seem to go on almost as far as the eye can see in some spots, ending only at the foot of monstrous sand dunes off in the distance.

A 3km driving track weaves its way in and around the Pinnacles, and takes one through the most spectacular areas. It’s almost impossible to appreciate the wonder of the landscape by simple photos. One really needs to see the rocks rising out of the sands, more and more of them, in every direction you turn.

In addition to the majesty of WAs landscape, we were also introduced to some of its fauna. Namely the flies. They were everywhere. As bad, probably worse than in the Flinders Ranges. So prolific are they in arid regions that the constant waving of hands in front of one’s face to brush them away has become known as the “Australian Greeting,” or “Australian Wave.” Thus, while I would have liked to have spent a while walking around The Pinnacles, it wasn’t long before we were back on the road and headed north again.

Our second stop, and resting place for the evening was Jurien Bay. This town is a pretty seaside vacation spot and fishing town. Its beach was almost as pretty as the one at Cervantes and also boasted a jetty for fishing off, a fact that pleased Grant immensely. Indeed, people were even fishing off the beach so rich are the seas in the area. Shortly after arrival at the caravan park, Grant and Bec were installed in their cabin and I’d set up my tent (quite understandably, while they were willing to take a strange traveller along in their car, sharing sleeping quarters with one was a bit much, especially on their first holiday together.)

Since WA doesn’t use daylight savings time, dusk comes relatively early here. On this particular evening it was accompanied by a spectacular sunset, the sky being coloured by the smoke from the bushfire we’d driven past earlier in the day. In truth, I was happy to get to bed early, having begun the day at sunrise after an uncomfortable sleep in a train seat.

The next morning I woke upnice and early and had time to head down to the beach for a stroll before meeting Bec and Grant back at the caravan park and hitting the road once more. After a quick tour of the town and marina we were on the road once again. A stop just up the road at Green Head found us at yet another beautiful beach, this time in Dynamite Bay. Indeed, it struck me that the entire 500km stretch of coastline north of Perth that we drove these first two days was nothing BUT one beautiful beach backed by huge sand dunes.

Inland things were a little more changable, with the olive groves giving way to grain and hay fields, interspersed with bits of grazing land. The hot dry area we were driving through that day could be called the bread basket of WA, if not the entire country. After a long morning of driving, we came to Geraldton the population centre of the region. Despite the fact that it has only 23 000 people, Geraldton had the feel of a bustling metropolis. 500km north of Perth and much, much farther away from any other large town, Geraldton had the feel of an oasis in the semi-arid plains and hills.

As we pulled up to the caravan park where we’d spend the evening, we saw the sky filled with large kites out above the ocean. Not only was this place a veritable oasis, it was also hosting the Australian kite surfing championships. After unpacking and setting up camp/moving into the cabin, Grant, Bec and I took a drive into town.

On the way in to town, we passed by the commercial harbour area. Geraldton is the port of departure for much of the grain and ore produced in the area, and is also a major crayfish (rock lobster)-ing area. (Indeed, one of the highlights of Bec’s trip up the coast was to be a crayfish dinner that evening.)

A short drive later and we were driving along the pretty main street where I took leave of Grant and Bec and I wandered off to explore on my own (at this point I was still very wary of crowding in on their vacation too much and was trying to give them as much space as possible to themselves.) Aside from the town centre and the port, the major attraction of Geraldton is the HMAS Sydney II memorial, a monument to the 645 man crew lost when that light cruiser was lost just off the coast during a battle with the German cruiser Kormoran, which was also sunk and lost all but 80 of her crew.

Once again, the sun started to set early and a walk back along the beach got me back to the caravan park just in time to catch the last of the kite surfing, as well as the sun’s last rays lighting the classically designed lighthouse nearby.

The next morning I rose early and headed into town to pick up a new bathing suit (number 3 on this trip.) I arrived back just before Bec and Grant, who were taken to task by the caravan park owner for their late checkout. No matter, we were soon on our way to the east end of town where we had a delightful cool lunch with Margaret, a friend of Grant’s mum! And to think that less than 30 hours ago I’d planned on a solitary trip a mere 400km south of Perth!

After lunch we headed out onto the road for the hottest, longest and most isolated day of driving yet. Perhaps 20 minutes after leaving Geraldton, I spotted an advertisement for the Billabong Roadhouse, 110km away. This wasn’t just overambitious advertising (as with Wall Drug and South of the Border in the US) but was actually entirely sensible. The Billabong was the nearest place for food, water, fuel… anything more or less, after leaving Geraldton. And I don’t just mean on the main road. For the next 110km there was NOTHING out there but bushes and dirt (the farmland had disappeared not far north of Geraldton.)

Upon arriving at the roadhouse we were all hot and tired once more and stopped in for a drink and some air conditioned comfort. We got both, as well as an… interesting… conversation with one of the proprieters. Upon hearing I was a structural engineer he became very excited and proceeded to explain a “commonsense” plan he’d worked out for the betterment of WA:

Ship all of the garbage from Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide out into the WA desert and start building a mountain with it. He proposed that the mountain have a square base, 100km on a side and be built up to an elevation of 5000m at which point he figured it would alter weather patterns to start rainfall in the desert and allow it to be used as farmland. I listened as intently as I could, occaisionally giving a small smile/chuckle, or saying something like “well, it’s a novel idea.” At each response of this sort, the fellow would get quite offended, but continued telling nonetheless.

We eventually extricated ourselves and made it back to the car where I actually gave the idea a bit of thought. Leaving aside the meteorological, hydrological and transportation problems, a conservative estimate of the garbage production of the four cities in question would have them taking about 3000 years to create said mountain. I wish I’d worked this out while we were still there, but no doubt that would have caused still greater offense…

As we continued driving, the country became more and more desolate, prompting Grant to suggest that he suspected the end of the world was “just over that next hill there.” As it turned out he was right! As we reached the summit, the car shot out into the inky black nothing of the universal void and we tumbled down, down, down until– Until I remembered that this was supposed to be a (reasonably) accurate record of my trip and not a work of fiction.

So… Where were we? Ah! At the turn-off on the road up to Denham (130km to the NNW off the North West Coast Highway.) While chances are good none of you readers will have heard of Denham, odds aren’t too bad that at least some of you will be familiar with Monkey Mia which lies 28km away, across the peninsula on Shark Bay.

Monkey Mia rose to world prominence in the early 1980s when, entirely unprompted, a few wild dolphins living in Shark Bay started visiting a homesteader there. The woman began tossing bits of fish to the dolphins when they came, and the behaviour continued. Not only this, but the (still entirely free and wild) dolphins started teaching their children to visit Monkey Mia as well. As knowledge of these sociable wild dolphins spread, the place quickly became a tourist attraction in spite of its remote location (about 800km north of Perth on the main highway, then a further 130km on a secondary road) and all of Shark Bay is now a World Heritage Area.

On the way to Denham, having just entered the WHA, Bec took her first turn at the wheel during which she managed to hit a goanna (large carnivorous lizard) that had been sitting in the road. The goanna met its end with a distasteful thump-sploush sound that also sounded the end of Bec’s turn at the wheel (in truth it may actually have been Grant and I’s teasing afterwards that convinced her to stop, but directly or in-, the goanna was still responsible.)

We arrived at Denham as evening drew in and although I set up my tent almost immediately, it wasn’t before going out for a swim in the bay, some 12m or so from my tent site.

The next morning I met up with Grant and Bec and we drove out to Monkey Mia itself. To our good fortune, the dolphins were there for a visit as we arrived!

At one time, interaction with the dolphins was completely unfettered, but now it is controlled by the WA department of Conservation And Land Management. Visitors are only allowed knee deep in the water where the dolphins usually visit (though they’re free to swimm in the very nearby beach,) touching the dolphins is not permitted and only a small amount of food is given to the dolphins each day, and then only to the older females who have been visiting for many years.

Despite all this, it was still amazing to get so close to these wild (if habitually homo-phillic) sea mammals. The closest dolphins came within a metre or so of me! After a bit of general socializing, the CALM officers randomly selected a few individuals to feed the visitors. As it turned out, Grant was one of the lucky few, much to the delight and consternation of Bec (delight for obvious reasons and consternation because it was clear that she was the real dolphin lover of the three of us.)

The feeding itself was particularly entertaining because of the other well known beach residents: a flock of pelicans who habitually loiter around and steal the fish meant for the dolphins. For this reason, before the dolphin feeding starts, a warden asks the crowds to part so that the pelicans in the water can see his bucket full of fish, which prompts these raiding avians to follow him inland away from the dolphins to receive their “Danegeld” while the dolphins are ded undisturbed.

After the dolphins headed back out to sea, Bec and Grant headed out on a sailboat cruise in the bay to observe local wildlife, while I opted for a swim off the beach, a walk in the dunes behind the beach and a nice long read. During the dune-walk, I was amazed by the quantity of snake trails I observed. It seemed as the place must be over-run by them, though I didn’t see a single live one. This walk also gave me an opportunity to be photographed with a “watch for dilbys” sign. Dilbys are small marsupials with rabbit like ears, though I amused the Grant and Bec by asking if the idea of marsupials with insect wings was meant to be a joke.

Eventually Bec and Grant returned from their cruise. The dolphins hadn’t reappeared for a second feed and seemed unlikely to do so, so we headed back to Denham. We spent the afternoon sitting on the porch of their chalet, drinking a few beers, causing riots among a flock of seagulls by feeding them and talking and eventually suppertime rolled around.

My driving hosts also turned into my dinner hosts this evening, treating me to a barbeque of fresh caught fish (they’d been fishing off the dock in town the previous night) and sausages, along with bread and salad. Supper was great, and afterwards we grabbed the remaining beers and headed down to the dock to see what we could do about procuring food for the next day as well.

The water (apparently) wasn’t as clear as the previous night, but you could still see the fish as they went for your bait, as well as miscellaneous rays and sea snakes as they cruised by.

Grant and Bec had a pair of rods and a hand line, which I was using. Given how long it had been since I’d been fishing, I didn’t fancy my odds. Yet lo and behold, I was the first to get a catch! A striped sea pike, though a small one, only 18cm long or so. That fellow was thrown back, but the next two, also striped sea pike went in the fish bag. My final catch of the day was a monstrous fish of the same species, perhaps 45cm long (they grow to a maximum of 55cm) that (except for a smallish stingray that was thrown back) may have been the largest fish anyone on the jetty caught all night.

Bec and Grant also caught several fish through the evening, so we clearly had a nice meal by not long after sundown when the fish seemed to slow down. Though the fish may have stopped biting, the lights on the jetty came on and squid started appearing in the waters below. A pair of women nearby were catching loads of them with their jigging setup, and even Grant pulled one out with his ordinary rod. As each hit the dock, everyone backed away, for in its desparate struggle for life, each squid would fire a powerful squirt of ink that travelled 3m or more through the air.

The women were actually catching them as bait and had more than they needed, so provided us with two more squid for our seafood buffet, as well as teaching us how to properly clean a squid (apparently they were both chefs and were growing tired of the huge amounts of calamari they’d been eating recently.)

As it got later, Bec headed back to the caravan park while Grant and I stayed behind to clean the fish. Or rather I stayed behind to watch Grant clean the fish and to help tidy up afterwards.

Next morning I continued my habit of getting up with the (very early) sunrise, and was up and packed by 07:00, ready for a seafood breakfast Grant prepared on the barbeque. The fish were good, especially after I discovered how to get the bones out of the many-ribbed pike. If anything, the squid, prepared with salt, lime juice and ground chillis, were even better. And we still had another good sized fish and two squid left!

After breakfast we headed back to the main road, then on up the coast. Our only stop during the drive was at the town of Carnarvon, the last place for several hundred kilometres with a reliable fresh water source. Carnarvon’s highlights include a disused (but still impressive) NASA receiving dish, the many fruit plantations (especially bannanas!) nearby, and the old and battered, but still standing, one mile jetty. Grant, Bec and I took a walk out to the end of the jetty, which provided a nice stretch of the legs before getting back in the car and carrying on up the coast towards my northernmost destination, the tiny town of Coral Bay. Just before arriving, we passed 23.5 degrees south, putting us in the tropics.

Coral Bay is some 1200km north of Perth. It is a popular destination for tourists, though it can’t accomodate all that many of them, due mostly to a reliable supply of fresh water. Most tapwater in Coral Bay comes from a warm, slightly salty well (or bore as the Aussies call it.) The main reason for Coral Bay’s popularity is the nearby Ningaloo Reef.

The Ningaloo is the western cousin to the Great Barrier Reef on Australia’s east coast. While not nearly as long (“only” 260km) the Ningaloo’s coral is just as spectacular, and it has the dual advantages of beign less touristed and much more accessible. Indeed, at Coral Bay the reef comes almost right up to the beach.

Upon arriving in town, I checked into the Ningaloo Club Backpackers, while Grant and Bec continued with their pattern of staying in chalets on caravan parks. Since Bec hadn’t wanted any of the squid or fish, they were all deeded to me and provided three more great meals, including dinner that night.

My first full day in Coral Bay gave me a chance to head down to the aptly-named Paradise Beach to do a bit of snorkelling. Wow! The fish I saw off the beach were every bit as beautiful as any in the South Pacific and the coral was far, far beyond anything I’ve seen since the Great Barrier 15 years ago. Huge outcrops of stag coral, whose branches never seemed to end, large lumpy brain coral, and gorgeous two-metre-wide rosettes of cabbage coral. Despite the fact that these hard corals lack the bright colours of their softer relatives, the sheer quantity and size of them were stunning.

Almost impressive was the school of fish I swam through on my way back to the beach. There were literally thousands of them. Thousands and thousands, all silver and 15-25cm long. I swam into the school and every one easily slipped past me with no obvious concern. I swam through them for seemingly minutes before turning around. Everywhere I looked I was surrounded by these fish. I eventually found my way back to the beach, but had to head back in again for another look before drying off in the sun and then heading back to the hostel.

Upon arriving back, I settled in for a quiet evening, but it was not to be. I sat down with Alistair, Daniel and Michelle, three roommates of mine who were discussing heading down to the pub. Well, this sounded like fun…

I have no idea how long we spent there, but after the pub closed, we headed to what is, apparently, the late-night party spot in Coral Bay: a courtyard in the outdoor shopping centre near the bakery. We sat there for a bit, and I would have been able to go home happily and topple into bed, but once again, it was not to be. Several other guests at the hostel were there with a four litre box of wine that they were happy to share… Well, this was more or less the end of me.

One of my favourite authors, Paul Quarrington created a character who would “go across the river to Hull and get so drunk he could speak French.” This was exactly the state I was in that night. I spent an hour, perhaps more speaking French with a Belgian couple, the drink and the fact that they were Flemish (though still proficient in French) stripping away any embarassment about my poor command of the language. Though we did talk for a long time, so maybe I’m not as bad as I think…

Next morning- Ow. Headache. It’d been a while since I felt like this. I’d meant to be up at 08:00 to go snorkelling with manta rays. I had 13 minutes to get ready and out the doos. Thankfuly I hadn’t booked the trip in advance and decided it could wait until the next day and slumped back under the covers. I spent the entire day at the hostel, sitting in the sun, reading and drinking large quantities of water. By the mid afternoon I was actually feeling pretty good again, which was fortunate, given that I had an appointment to keep.

All the way up the coast I’d been promising Bec and Grant that I’d buy them a nice dinner in order to thank them for the ride. Before arriving in Coral Bay I’d been a bit worried that it might be so small it would have no restaurants, but no, it actually had two. I met them at the hotel/pub/restaurant and despite the previous night’s experience had a couple of beers with them at their insistence.

We spent the last part of the afternoon and early evening talking, having a few more beverages and then finaly enjoying a lovely dinner of steak and prawns. Since I’d planned on leaving the following afternoon once I’d finished my manta ray snorkelling trip, we also said our goodbyes, took a few commemorative photos and exchanged contact info.

I headed back to the hostel not too late in the evening and stopped for just long enough to have a chat and be sociable with the crowds that were sitting beside the pool before heading off to bed. As I was walking back to the room brushing my teeth, I saw Bec down in the courtyard. Apparently she’d gone out for a walk on the beach and “misplaced” Grant, and was now without a way into their cabin. I headed back out into the cool night with her and, after a short wander had been unable to find Grant. Thankfully he was back at the cabin when we returned there to wait.

At long last I made my way back to bed and slept in preparation for my big day the following morning.

I woke up and couldn’t decide what to do. I had planned on departing on a 14:00 bus that afternoon, so that I’d have time to get back down to Perth, then carry on south to explore the southwest of the state. But at the same time, I was enjoying my stay in Coral Bay and really was getting a bit tired of packing my bag and making travel arrangements every day or two. I paced around the lobby of the hostel, unable to decide, especially as the next 14:00 bus left in 3 days, and all the others between now and then were at 03:05 in the morning. Finally, at the suggestion a fellow guest, I flipped a coin. It turned up heads, so I walked up to the front desk and arranged to stay for another few days.

My indecisiveness had taken a while, so it was now time to head out on my snorkelling trip. A pointlessly short busride from the booking office took us to the boat docks, where the eight of us boarded the boat that would take us out to the rays. After safety, gear (in addition to a mask, snorkel and fins, we’d also been given wetsuits to protect against the rare but very unpleasant jellyfish that can be found in the reef) and animal behaviour briefings, we headed out of the town harbour via a circuitous route through the reef. I sat up on the foredeck of the boat, the wind and sun on me a glorious combination.

In about twenty minutes we were floating near the reef’s outer edge and before long received a call from the spotter plane. (Yes, they use an airplane to find the rays in the water and direct the boat to them. This is the primary reason that the manta ray interaction trips are so expensive.)

Within a few minutes we were in the water preparing to meet the rays. We’d been lucky in that there were several of them congregated around a cleaning station (a patch of rock or coral where rays and other large fish go in order to be cleaned off by cleaner wrasse, small blue and black striped fish that feed on parasites that plague their large guests.) It was fortunate that we foudn them there, because it meant they’d be relatively stationary. Mantas are fast swimmers, and if you’re aiming to follow them around as they move, it can be difficult to keep up.

Once in the water, we spotted a manta gliding through the water in no time. It was a small male, perhaps 2m across (the largest mantas can be up to 6m from “wingtip” to “wingtip.”) Black on top, with a white underside, it swam gracefully through the water, flapping its large pectoral fins and appearing almost to fly.

One of the fellow guests dove down towards it as it swam around the cleaning station, an action that had been specifically warned against, and the ray started to swim away. We followed it, but it was all we could do to keep up, and it had disappeared in no time. I was particularly irritated when, after this, the fellow who had probably scared it away warned me to keep my fins below the water when kicking, as they made a lot of noise on the surface and could scare the fish. This was entirely true, but still annoyed me.

Back on the boat, they’d received another call from the plane that there were several more manta rays back at the cleaning station. We all swam back instead of reboarding the boat, and this time found two rays there, gliding about. It was amazing how graceful these huge creatures were (at 3.5m across each pair of females were probably the largest things I’d ever been in the water with.)

They “flew” through the water, once turning deftly as to just avoid hitting one another. As they passed the white underside of their “wingtips” just touched, a scene which was later likened by another guest to the rays high-fiving.

The two rays swam off in different directions, and we followed one for a few minutes. It seemed in no hurry to get anywhere in particular and soon had returned to the cleaning station where we met to additional rays for a total of three. I floated in the water, only occaisionally kicking in order to maintain my spot in the current, all the while staring at the beautiful giants beneath me.

After perhaps 20 minutes of this, the rays departed, once again quicker than we could follow and we reboarded the boat.

Our next stop was still further out at the reef, this time in an area known as the turtle nursery. Green and Loggerhead sea turtles abound here, and we saw dozens. Most were simply dark, vaguely turtle-shaped spots in the water, but several came to the surface to take a look at the boat and to take once of their two or three hourly breaths. The various tour companies on the reef have agreed not to dive or snorkel here to avoid disturbing the turtles, which was a bit diappointing, but entirely understandable.

Our final stop was at a particularly large coral outcrop perhaps 800m off the shore on the way back in. Here we spent perhaps an hour in the water admiring the fish and coral. The coral structures here were even more beautiful, and clearly in better condition than those near the beach. We swam as a group around to the back of the coral outcrop, spying a few blacktip reef sharks and a small sea turtle on the bottom as we went.

The current was particularly strong here, so after a short time admiring them, we swam back through a gap in the outcrop to the comparatively calm front side. While the (still incredible) life here wasn’t as impressive as the manta rays, I was still very happy at being able to dive down below the surface to get a closer look.

Eventually, even with the wetsuit, the cool of the water and the effort of swimming caught up with us all and we headed back to the boat which, after an afternoon tea (it included some great [to the point of being memorable] coffee cake) headed back to shore.

I spent the later part of the afternoon in a pattern that would repeat itself over the next few days… I lazed about the hostel, enjoying the warmth and sun, which were tempered by the strong afternoon breeze that appeared every day I was in Coral Bay. I passed the time by reading and watching cricket and, on this day, listening to the Tragically Hip live album that an Australian fan of the bands played on the hostel stereo. I spent the evening sitting outside, playing ping-pong, pool and just chatting with my fellow guests. One or two locals were also present at the open-air bar, including the groundskeeper at one of the caravan parks. Dave (I think his name was) was a former lawyer who now spent much of his free time fighting against a huge resort development just to the north of Coral Bay that would increase the number of visitors by at least fourfold.

The next morning I headed out to the beach and sat in under an overhanging piece of sandstone, reading, listening to music on my mp3 player and revelling in the view of the ocean and reef and in the blissful weather. The afternoon was spent in the exact same fashion, except this time I sat with my new friends and roommates (Daniel, Alistair, Holly, Jo and others) at the end of the pool instead of at the bar, again, talking until the bar closed and it was time for bed. I was beginning to behave like the “stereotypical” backpacker… Which was actually very relaxing, if not entirely the way I liked to think of myself.

The next morning was spent walking out to the “shark nursery” some 2km north of town. In this small, shallow bay, dozens of young blacktip reef sharks
congregate. They’ve been doing so for almost 20 years now, though no one understands exactly why. Since blacktips (indeed, all reef sharks) are quite docile, it’s possible to walk into the knee deep water and get quite close to them indeed. At one point I saw four of them perhaps 10m away following one anothers’ tails in a circular shape, just as sharks on television and film behave.

The afternoon and evening were spent exactly the same way as the previous day. This may have not been the “best” use of my time in WA, but it was giving me much needed relaxation.

My final day in Coral Bay was spent with a short walk down to the beach, to admire the beauty of the ocean and reef one final time, and then up the hill for a view out over the town. At the top of the hill I also found the local pet cemetary… Not only were there the usual mix of dogs and cats, but a pair of pet Foster’s kangaroos were also buried there.

I returned to the hostel for lunch, just after which the bus arrived. I said slightly hurried goodbyes to all of my newfound friends (save for Holly who was heading back to Perth also) and climbed aboard for the 17 hour trip.

Thankfully Australian long distance buses are very comfortable, with seats that recline far back, and a TV at the front that videos are played on throughout the course of the trip. There’s even a small bedroom at the back so that the spare driver can have a rest while his compatriot is in charge of the vehicle. Thus I spent a surprisingly comfortable 17 hours on the road, having a nice dinner with Holly at a roadhouse along the way. During our dinner at the roadhouse, we noted a beauty of the ocean and reef rack of bumper stickers which prove that the stereotypes of Australian men may not be purely fictional… After reboarding the bus, I even managed a nice sleep before arriving in Perth at 07:00 the following morning.

Thanks this time are due, of course, to Grant and Bec. Without them this entry would never even have happened, since I wouldn’t have even considered heading up the coast.

Shortly after we met, they’d asked me what I thought of Australian hospitality. Thanks to them, my already high opinion of it has increased imeasurably. Best of luck in Port Hedland guys, as well as with your upcoming wedding, and thank you once more.

Tags: Australia

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