As I suggested in my last post, the last few weeks have been amazing. I'll try to sum them up briefly, but in a little more detail than my last post. When Nick and I left Perth on New Years Day and headed south, we intended on spending a week in the region of Margarets River and then follow the coast along to Esperance before crossing the Nullabor towards Adelaide and then Melbourne. However, things have changed. Margarets was absolutely beautiful, a real contrast with Perth and the north of WA in that it was greener, with vast forests and the weather was more like a good English summer than the 30 to 40 degrees we had become accostomed to. We fell in love with the place, and just as we were reluctantly preparing to move on several things happened at once. My good friend Matt who I trained with in Sydeney in 1999 came down to join us and set about trying to talk me into staying longer on the West coast. Nick's West Oz romance Hannah came down and was due to stay for a week. And we bumped into Dunja and Denice, two young, fun, beautiful Dutch girls who I had met and instantly fallen in love with at Christmas in Perth. Thes factors combined with a good forecast and an endless list of things to do in the area made us drastically change our plans. We decided to stay another week in Margarets and then follow the coast as planned to esperance, before heading back to Perth so Nick could catch his outbound flight from there. We have no regrets whatsoever! The extra week in Margarets was awesome, I had some incredible kitesurfing sessios, landing single and double back loops! We went on a wine tour, to a chocolate factory, to some incredibel caves, two lighthouses and lots of amazing beaches. Dunja and Denise were great fun and a constant source of amusement. Everyone got on really well and it was one of the best weeks I've had in Australia. of course it had to end, Nick said his tearful farewell to Hannah as she headed to a remote inland town to work in a bar to unlock the second year of her visa, we said our goodbyes to Dunja and Denise as they caught a bus back to Perth ready to catch a flight to Bali and Nick and I eventually hit the road again heading southeast towards the Valley of the Giants.
The Valley of the Giants is an area of forrest where some of Australia's tallest trees grow, and there is a tourist attraction there called the treetop walk which I have been keen to visit ever since hearing about it. Its a metal walkway in the canopy of these huge trees which is 40 metres above the ground at its highest point. Its quite breathtaking and Nick and I enjoyed it so much we walked round it twice. We also took a walk around at groundlevel which included trees that you could walk right through, some of which were 400 years old and 16 metres around their base. We carried on from the Valley of the Giants toward Esperance, intending to stay that night at a remote camping ground in the Fitzgerald River National Park. We drove to Bremer Bay on the edge of the park, a beautiful place in its own right, only to find that the park was closed due to serious bushfires! We had to backtrack to the main road and head for the Stokes National Park near Esperance. This meant we had to do about 5 or 6 hours driving that day. We arrived at the campsite quite late and set up our tent as a huge electrical storm approached. There were more mozzies than I've seen anywhere in Oz so we skipped dinner and watched the lightening from our tent for a while before fatigue got the better of us and we fell asleep.
The next morning I woke with a nasty headache, not alchohol induced but rather akin to the migraines I occasionally get. I had a bit of a lay in then went for a swim in the sea to try to revive myself. The water was clear and the bay beautiful but my headache persisted. We drove to Esperance and I felt gradually better as time went on. Esperance wasn't a particularly large place but the bay was incredible, with breathtaking beaches and dozens of small picturesque isalnds just out to sea. We had a look around and spent a little time at the internet cafe before getting some information from the Tourist Info place and heading East towards the deserted beaches of Cape Arid National park. We headed for a campsite at Thomas River which was a mere $2 a head per night but 120 kilometres away. Just before we turned down an unsealed road for the last 50k or so a huge storm came upon us and we were both shocked to see hailstones pelting the bonnet of the White Dragon. I took the turning for Thomas River and did my Colin McRae thing to get ahead of the storm so we could rig the tent before the downpour. We arrived at the remote campground and set up camp, but the storm seemed to track past and miss us. We went for a wonder down to Yokinup beach before dinner. It was about ten miles long, wide, white sand and totally deserted. Beautiful. Unspoilt. Ours. We had a paddle then our bellies led us back to the campsite and ordered us to cook up some dinner.
The next morning we drove the White Dragon down onto Yokinup beach and drove a couple of kilometres along it for a look see. It was so beautiful and unspoilt and totally deserted, it felt like our very own beach only it was bigger than we'd ever need it to be! There were waves rolling in up the very gently shelving beach, but they weren't big enough for us to get excited about surfing, Margarets had spoilt us in that department. We went for a drive to a few other beaches in the area and found pretty much the same thing, beautiful, deserted white sandy beaches. We had to do a pretty hardcore offroad track to get to one, which was fun. We went back to Yokinup beach for lunch, some cheese and biscuits. We had the perfect setting! Not another human in sight, just a few birds here and there. The wind was starting to pick up a little and I was desperate to kitesurf this paradise, with not a single other kitesurfer for over 100k in any direction. I set up and launched out into the shallow clear water, but was a little disappointed by the wind. It was a bit light and up and down. I had some good runs and got out past the waves. Even here where it must have been at least a couple of metres deep the water was so clear I could see every pebble on the bottom. I've never seen such beautiful clear turquoise water anywhere else, and I was enjoying it in a way I imagine few people have. Despite a few good runs it wasn't long before I gave up on the kitesurfing and we headed back to camp.
Unfortunately the weather wasn't great, it was a bit overcast and threatened to rain at any minute. After a while of sitting around the campsite wondering what to do with ourselves we decided to pack up and go back to Esperance. It was Saturday night after all! We drove back to Esperance and checked into a campsite, then walked into town in search of a restaurant. Esperance seemed to have little or no nightlife and we were even turned away from a Chinese restaurant at a little after 9.30pm because their kitchen had already closed. Eventually we found a place called the Loose Goose which was excellent, very good food indeed, track it down if you're ever in Esperance. After that we were pretty tired and went back to the campsite for some kip.
The next morning we checked the forecasts on the internet to see if the weather, wind or waves were due to improve, but it didn't look promising so we hit the road again and headed northwest towards Wave Rock, near a small 'town' called Hyden, about 400k inland and on the way back to Perth. Wave Rock is a section of a huge granite outcrop that has been eroded over millions of years into the shape of a huge wave. Its about 14 metres high and is very impressive. We also saw nearby "Hippo's Yawn' and 'Mugli's Cave', the cave of a giant boss eyed baby eating aboriginal, which was nice. We stayed at a campsite a stonesthrow from Wave Rock, sadly it was the last time Nick and I will pitch camp together on this trip. We ate some spaghetti and meatballs and then when it was dark we went back to Wave Rock to see it in the moonlight. Eerily impressive. The next morning we had a lay in then packed up quick and fled the flies heading back to Perth, about 4 hours drive away. We're now at Matt's Dad's flat in Perth, a great place with free wireless internet, easy access to the city, aircon, secure parking and most excitingly for me, a kitchen and fridge! I'll hopefully stay here a couple of weeks before I head across to Adelaide and on to Melbourne and Sydney. I think I deserve a little luxury!
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