Temple Gorge (Kennedy Ranges) to Albany - 17 to 30 September
Temple Gorge in the Kennedy Range NP
After our farewells to Chuck and Sue it was time for more adventures. So we headed west from Carnarvon into the outback, with a shiny just washed car and caravan and headed to Temple Gorge. We haven't been here before, so we thought we'd check it out.
The view was really spectacular but the camping area was in the scrub, quite small and very tight. We wondered why Wally the camp host decided to volunteer for 4 weeks out here amongst the dust and flies. The clean car and van didn't last long as it was over 61 kms of dirt road just to get into the gorge.
View from the sunrise lookout
The brochure says you can swim at the bottom of this dry waterfall when it rains.
Between Gascoyne Junction and Temple Gorge there's a section of the old Cobble Stone Road. The road between Bangemall Goldfields and Carnarvon was "cobbled" during the Great Depression in 1930s, using just picks and shovels as part of the Government Sustenance Program, basically a 'work for the dole' scheme. This incredible piece of work was literally stuck out in the middle of nowhere, and we just happened to see a small sign driving in to Temple Gorge.
This is part of what's left of this Cobbled Road
Imagine how hard that work would have been back then!
Charles Kingsford-Smith used to transport goods along this route in the 1920s to fund his aviation exploits. His contract paid 2 cents per kilometre to cart stuff along tracks which they had to make themselves. Now that's a tough gig! The cobble stone roads opened these routes and changed all those contracts.
Gascoyne Junction (150 people) has a really nice new park made for travellers to stop and enjoy the lovely shaded covers, and a great Anzac Cenotaph.
Bilung (Birlungardi) Pool
This is a free camp which has a permanent water hole. A welcome place to stop along the 400kms of dirt we had to negotiate from Temple Gorge.
Some campers went swimming in the waterhole, but it's not flowing at present so we didn't venture into the water.
We were lucky enough to see a Blue Winged Kookaburra. It doesn't sound anything like the laughing one we're all used to, and its call is described as "appalling" in the bird book - poor guy
We stayed the night in Cue, which has a good free RV Park and the quality of the water at the free water station is excellent. So we filled up for our trip south.
While we were filling up, the local constabulary were out doing Random Breath Testing, at 10:00 am right in front of the Police Station. They certainly didn't have far to go to set this one up!
The last we heard from them was "Just 4 more to go!"
We drove the Great Northern Highway south from Cue, thinking we'd take this route rather than the coast road to get away from all the caravans on the coast. Instead what we met were many large oversized vehicles carrying the various mining machinery around. Sometimes two or three oversized together. For 5.5 metres or wider, a Traffic Escort Warden with flashing red and blue lights is required to block the roads and bridges totally so they can pass.
The mining truck is straddled over the tow vehicle
How you could drive on these roads without a CB radio is beyond us. There are two different ways the pilot vehicles describe the width of their load over the CB. It's important when travelling in the outback that you must be able to hear their warnings. One is to just state their width, in this case above it was 8m wide. Other times the pilot vehicle will say its 1.5m into your lane. To have this standardised would be beneficial.
Talking to the truckies is certainly entertaining, as is listening to their banter if you don't mind their colourful language.
We stopped at "Paynes Find" for lunch. and shared our lunch with the flies - a nice steak burger and the chips were amazing.
Besides the fuel being expensive, you had to leave your credit card as deposit before you could fill up.
Wives weren't considered enough of a deposit!
So Jayne was safe, this time!
Shannon National Park
Walpole
We decided not to stay in Walpole this trip, but stopped off to do the WOW Wilderness EcoCruise on the Lady Walpole, then continued on to The Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk.
Owner (and entertainer) Gary Muir, firmly believes Walpole is the centre of the world.
Gary explaining how the universe was created - smashing spiles of and apart, creating earthquakes, and moving sand countries from one side of the world to the other
We got on the boat with about 20 other people, expecting a cruise around the inlet and surrounding area. What we got was one man, and his side kick Howard who drove the boat most of the time, and handed out cake and tea/coffee the rest of the cruise. We hardly looked outside the windows while we were entertained by Gary - part mad scientist, passionate naturalist, geologist, historian and comedian. We'd heard to 'take a deep breath' before getting on the boat, and we were all exhausted by the time we got off. The ever enthusiastic Gary was still bouncing off the walls when we left the boat2.
He does this cruise every day, and if you're ever in Walpole - according to Gary there's the South pole, North pole and Walpole - you must do this cruise!
One of the many photos Gary scrambles for when he's telling one of his stories.
The Lady Walpole
Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk
The Tree Top Walk is suspended 40 metres high in the canopy of the ancient Tingle and Karri forest. This circular walk is 800m long and very spectacular.
Huge fire-hollowed red tingle tree
Denmark
The Riverbend Caravan Park in Denmark was excellent. It had a real country feel to it, with fields of lush green grass complete with power, water and fire pits. We needed the fire pit as the nights were exceptionally cold.
We obviously travelled south way too fast as we're both struggling in the cold, and its not that cold compared to Sydney standards.
Certainly the diesel heater got a full workout.
Denmark Riverbend Caravan Park
The coast around Walpole and Denmark is quite something to see, when the weather is right. But boy can it blow down around here! We were lucky to have a cool, sunny and relatively still day to enjoy it.
Elephant Rocks
While we were in Denmark we came across a vintage car exhibition. It was an excellent display and very interesting.
A 1950's Messerschmitt Car, which sells for an average price of $42,000
Porongurup National Park - Granite Skywalk
We looked at this walk and photos and were suitably impressed with what we had read. The description of this Grade 5 hike is "The 4.7 km (return) Castle Rock Trail in Porongurup NP starts at the Castle Rock picnic area and climbs through Jarrah, Marri and Karri forest, past the fascinating Balancing Rock to the base of Castle Rock and the lower lookout. A further steep and challenging climb, scrambling over rocks and climbing a 6m ladder brings you to the Granite Skywalk; an amazing steel structure that winds its way around the massive granite dome, providing panoramic views of the surrounding countryside".
Challenging? Well - they are certainly correct there!
After walking constantly up a steep path for 2.3kms, reaching the upper lookout requires walking through and over rocks, scrambling through tight squeezes using very suitably placed hand grips which were a real challenge to manoeuvre through and then climbing a 6m ladder. When we were waiting our turn to scramble between the boulders, we overhead a young boy say to his Mum on his return "I thought I was going to shed a few tears doing that". And we hadn't climbed through then!
The trees sure are big around here.
This is the target
Balancing Rock, with Jayne supporting it
You can make out the hand grips/foot holds to get through
Tight squeeze with hand grips or foot holds (whatever works for you) that are a touch too far apart
Jayne struggled getting up past the last foot hold and was offered the hand of a man who pulled her up. If Jayne lost his grip it was a long way down.
We made it!
It's Wildflower Season in WA! A selection of what we saw on our walk
Leaving Albany we drove past one of our favourite wineries. We had to stop and sample their coffee! Too early for wine tasting although others were partaking of this.
Albany
When we arrived at the caravan park in Albany, we realised that the Anderson plug from the caravan had come out of its connection to the car, and was completely destroyed after bouncing around on the road for 55 kms.
Alan spent many hours on this job. Firstly the soldering iron died. Thankfully Albany has a Bunnings!! Secondly, it was windy and freezing outside, making the job even more miserable. Thirdly, because Jayne had her phone on silent and didn't get Alan's calls that he needed more parts. She was having too much more fun at the brilliant National Anzac Centre.
We'd been to this fantastic place before, but Jayne needed to have a further look around, and to see this tree once more: It's a descendent of the original Lone Pine in Gallipoli ,where one of the toughest battles were fought back in WW1. There are 4 of these trees here, and while they don't look anything special, they're really significant.
The new Anderson plug was eventually nstalled, ready for our next trip.
Misery Beach in Albany was named 2022 Best Beach by Tourism Australia, so we definitely had to visit. Back in the whaling days this beach was a pool of blood (thus Misery), but as far as beaches go, there are nicer ones in this part of the country.
Misery Beach, voted Tourism Australia's Best Beach in 2022. Yeah nah!
An aerial shot of Misery Beach from the Tourism Australia website - yes, a magnificent beach, but not the best.
The Gap and Natural Bridge in Albany
Last time we visited we had our best travel buddy Bailey with us.
On entering the National Park the sign says "If you have a dog in your car, turn around now". We told Bailey to stay in the car and sleep (easy enough) and we covered him over with a map and he was still asleep when we returned.
Bailey in 2017, hidden under our map. Yes we know, you can't see him!
We sure miss this guy. He was such a great friend and travelling partner
They do rocks really well down here!
Esperance
When we arrived in Esperance the weather was fine, so we managed to get an after dinner walk in along the foreshore. We walked out onto their rejuvenated jetty with an interesting view over to the port. WA is such a busy place exporting all our mined resources. On the way to Esperance we'd passed a huge nickel mine, so this was where the road trains were heading to, with the nickel loaded onto ships to Asia.
The next morning we managed to get a bike ride in around the total foreshore, quite a distance and a really nice ride.
The view from the end of the ride, back across the bay to the city
Esperance and Denmark have so many beautiful beaches.
Then the wind came in, and my goodness it can certainly blow around these parts. The wind is icy cold, and we didn't realise Antarctica was so close to Esperance and Albany! It feels like it's about 100kms away.
Tomorrow we turn eastward. We'll get a nice push along the Nullarbor as this westerly wind will work in our favour. It's about time it did work for us, as petrol prices are horrendous on our way east.
We've done a few kilometres since Carnarvon!