Coral Bay to Yardie Creek Gorge in Cape Range NP
Sat. 16th – Tues. 19th
Another glorious cloud-free blue sky! A fine morning to travel to the next adventure after our few days of being in the coastal tourist strip and the 150km drive brought us into termite mound country and locusts before we hit the coast. We passed the defence installations, communications and airstrip before reaching Exmouth, which seemed to be a collection of motels and tourist facilities.
The road from the top of Cape Range to Yardie Creek, where we had booked a few nights camping, followed the coast with the range on one side and the ocean and camping grounds on the other. At the entrance to the NP, we caused some chaos when we couldn’t produce a booking slip and we later discovered that this was the first day of booked entry into the camping areas. WA’s NP camp areas have all been on a first-come-first-served basis and this is a trial of an online booking system. Bound to be some teething problems J
On the way down to Yardie Creek we called in at some of the other camping areas and discovered that they were all very exposed, small and mostly treeless. At Pilgramunna, our site for Monday evening, our booked site was facing the dry creek and the sea but there was no shelter at all. It turned out that our random booking of site 3 at Yardie, ‘some shade’ listed in the description, was most fortuitous, as it was the most shaded of sites and a very pretty spot.
It expired that we had 3 nights at Yardie Creek and none at Pilgramunna, as the Easter king tides flooded a number of camp sites and the campers were evacuated to day-park or over-flow areas. This also meant that we were unable to extend our stay longer than the 3 nights booked, as the whole of the camping area was completely full and would remain so until after Easter and the school holidays were over.
Our days at Yardie Creek were great, with snorkelling The Drift at Turquiose Bay, fishing and walking and kayaking up the gorge. The weather was hot and sunny and the nights were balmy. The Yardie Creek Gorge was not big but it was the first of the red-walled, rocky gorges of the north and a beautiful spot for kayaking, particularly in the late afternoon when the sun was setting over the ocean and the rays highlighting the reds in the cliff faces. Black-footed rock wallabies bounded over the steep rocks and euros (wallabies) were unafraid of humans.
We were the only campers on the first night, enjoyed ‘happy hour’ with our camp hosts Hazel & Bill and a young Sydney couple, Andy and Hayley on the second and were overshadowed by a large caravan on the 3rd! It was also here that we met Alan and May, his Thai girlfriend, and rediscovered that 6 degrees of separation is not much at all, as Alan had close ties with Gerry from Mornington FC and spent a lot of time with him in Pataya where they live in Thailand. Alan also knew Trevor Dick, an ex-Penbank parent who went to live in Thailand some years ago.
Yardie Creek to Exmouth and on to the Pilbara
Tues. April 19th
The usual slow start to the day, the usual packing-up tensions, farewells to Hazel and Bill then on to Exmouth to re-fuel, stock the fridge and have a quick drive around the new marina area which will be wonderful in a few years time .... until the next cyclone!
Although we were sad that we could not extend our time at Cape Range, particularly as GVS had some success with his fishing and I loved the kayaking, we set off after lunch and travelled over 400km, exceeding our target in order to make the following day easier. Our late departure turned out to be a wonderful thing as once we turned eastwards, after the Nanutarra Roadhouse, the scenery was spectacular and the rays of the setting sun lit up the ranges in all their glory.
I lack the ability to adequately describe the beauty of this section of road at this particular time of day. The rocky topped small hills glowed in colours that ranged from rich red to chocolate brown and the spinafex mounds in shades of green and grey gave an illusionary softness to the scenery. As the wet season had only ended in late March, there was water along the roadsides, lush grasses growing beside the road and the white-trunked trees were yet to be covered in red dust. As we drove closer to the ranges, the scenery changed again and the rocky-topped hills gave way to rolling ranges that, despite their angular outlines, gave the impression of gentle green hills and valleys.
Our campsite for the night was beside the Beasley River, which was now a series of pools and home to hundreds of cockatoos, ducks, kookaburras and the prolific butcher birds. It also had a variety of dragon flies, flies and mosquitoes!
Beasley River to Dales Campground at Karijini NP
Wed. April 20th
Happy Birthday Peter Thompson!
The kookaburras woke us before first light so we walked down to the river to enjoy the early light on the white-trunked gums, then set off around 7:30am – almost a record for us! The morning light ws harsher than the evening light therefore the ranges did not glow with the same intensity, but the mounds of spinafex and seemingly random short trees on the ranges, combined with water courses full of tall white eucalypts, provided spectacular scenery. Again we marvelled at the green-ness of the landscape and wholly recommend this time of year for travelling here, as later in the year the grasses would have died and it would be more like Mackellar’s ‘sunburnt country’ (and May begins the tourist season).
We avoided the wandering cattle and the occasional kangaroo and drove into Paraburdoo, to discover a township of many houses, 2-storey motel type fly-in fly-out accommodation for the mine workers, a shopping area and green grass everywhere in public spaces! No shortage of water for lawns here, although it may be recycled mine water. It is very different from the Paraburdoo of Ian’s experience in the early ‘70s, when there was a mine but no township.
Another 90km later and we were in Tom Price, again the lush green lawns of the parks belied the harsh environment. The caged-off shopping precinct indicated social problems, perhaps similar to towns like Roebourne, Karratha and Dampier. However, Tom Price was a pleasant place in which to have lunch and make brief contact with the outside world as phone and internet reception were excellent.
The town was named after an American who worked for US steel company in the 1960s and convinced mining companies and the government that ore stocks were great and the export potential huge. As BHP has just announced a $45billion development project in the Pilbara and Port Hedland is to be expanded to cater for the huge increase in exports, I am surprised that there aren’t statues of Tom everywhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment