Sunset Coast and Western Outback
Trip Start
Jun 08, 2007
1
61
67
Trip End
Dec 22, 2007
Broome, Australia
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Since the westcoast is much more deserted than the eastcoast, I joined an arranged tour with 14 other people... quite a funny group as it turned out, passing the long hours in the bus with Karaokeperformances and such like ;-) and of course using every bottle shop stopp on the way to the max, filling the whole trailer with beer and ice!
And guys, you can not believe how hot it was!! Especially because we did not have any aircondition on the bus. Our highest registered was 48 C.... you can imagine that sitting in the bus for 8 hours or more a day is not exactly refreshing, haha, in fact I never sweated so much in my entire life, argh
Our tour bus and slogan
! I usually do not really drink a lot of water, so seeing me gulping down 4 litres a day (and not even having to go to the bathroom) shows how hot it was! Not even the stopps at the ocean were always refreshing, at some points it felt more like a bathtub really!
And the flies...! My god! Thousands and thousands of them, and of course they all want to sit on your face... pretty disgusting, especially when you are trying to have a bite of your sandwich, argh! The only solution were flynets, which look pretty stupid, but they do the job, and you can even drink your beer without taking it off, hehe.
Well, we started the Tour Tuesday two weeks ago to get up till Broome in 10 days, and then some of us were going down again- in only 3 days, which meant straight driving from sunrise to sunset pretty much, the only stopps being at gasstations in the middle of nowhere!
On the first day we drove up to the Nambug National Park, where we saw the Pinnacle Desert: a redsanded desert, whith limestone colums sticking out... Then driving on along the coast, enjoying the panorama that would be typical for all the journey: sanddunes and ocean to the left and outback to the right. We stopped for sandboarding at some nice dunes and had a go with the boards, sitting or standing up - actually quite tricky, more than snowboarding anyway... and the bloody sand gets to every corner of your body, I can promise you that!
In the evening then we had our first Aussie-style Barbecue and some drinks, which of course kind of developed into a habit for the next two weeks :-)
The second day we drove into Kalbarri National Park, where we went down a Gorge to a river, looking at the rocks with their layers in different shades of red..
too hot!
. and then visiting the Natures Window, a frameshaped rockformation through which you can overlook the National Park.Later that afternoon stopping at Shell Beach, the longest beach in the world that is entirely covered in little shells, very very cool, but sadly it is forbidden of course to take them home, haha... Then having a look at the so-called Stromatolites, apparently the oldest living things on our planet, hm...
The third day started with a highlight just outside our beachside resort in Monkey Mia: feeding the dolphins! A group of dolphins comes to this beach every single morning, and people can watch them beeing fed, standing at the shore and the dolphins swimming just a meter away from you! Great experience, especially because there were three babydolphins in the group as well!! Would have loved to touch one, but of course you couldn't...
Then made our way north, passing Banana plantations and stopping for pictures on the Tropic of Capricorn, before heading into Coral Bay where we were so happy to jump into the sea and have a cool beer on the beach while the sun was setting!
The fourth day- finally after three days driving most of the time, and only stopping for smaller stopps along the way- we spend a day in Coral Bay. We took the opportunity to go quadbiking, which was pretty funny, speeding with this 4x4 vehicle. A guide took us along the beaches, cruising up and down steep sanddunes and enjoying the view over the bay and then a little snorkle in the reef.
A short drive took us to Exmouth in the late afternoon, where we had fish and chips at the lighthouse, with the sun setting in the background..
hit the road Jack
. pretty awesome!The fifth day as well was a day to relax, and actually one of the most beautiful scenarios of the trip: Turquoise Bay! As the name says: stunning light blue water and white sand everywhere you look! Fantastic! We spend a couple of hours just lazing at the beach and our guide taught us how to snorkle in the reef, because the current is quite strong there. So later I went out with some guys- they promised to stay at my side because when it comes to underwaterlife I am scared as hell. So we were snorkeling along, actually quite enjoying everything, spotting starfish and seacucumbers and heaps of colourful fishes.... and finally (dream come true) some turtles!! That was just the greatest feeling to swim with those peaceful animals, slowly paddeling through the water, coming up for air every once in a while. I was so fascinated, swimming after the turtle, that it totally struck me when the guide called out that there was a shark. Argh, that was definitely not my dream come true ;-) so I very quickly joined the guys again, staying very very close and squeezing hands! Very very exciting it was, swimming after that reefshark that was about my size, haha. But the shock I got after being back to the beach, when the guide was asking me if I hadn't noticed him pulling my flippers when I was swimming after the turtle... of course I had, but thinking he was talking about the turtle, I just put my thumb up and kept right on..
The Pinnacle Desert
. No he said, actually, that second, you were just 20 cm above the sleeping shark, waking it up, and you did not even notice... nightmare, argh! But such a cool experience, even though I would still never go snorkeling alone, haha. So... day six we spent in the bus mostly, having to drive a long way inland to reach the Karijini National Park. We still got there early enough to walk down one of the Gorges and take a swim in one of the pools, before setting up our bushcamp for the night- sleeping underneath the stars in swags...wonderful!
Day seven we spend entirely exploring the Karijini National Park, climbing into 3 Gorges and then hiking along the bottom, through very cool rockformations and swimming through rivers and pools. At times the gorges were so narrow, we had to walk with our feet on both sides of the gorge, with a little river passing underneath.... or so steep we had to lower ourselves on a rope. Very cool landscape, and such good fun those tricky hikes :-)
On the eight day, we had quite a drive again, heading north to the coast again and reaching Eighty Mile Beach in the late afternoon. Originally we planned on camping on the beach, but we couldn't because there were loads and loads of turtles laying their eggs on that beach
Sandboarding
. So we were quite lucky to be able to wittness this happening. In the dark we were sitting right beside that huge turtle, that was digging a big hole in the ground with its flippers, than laying the eggs and burrying them well before returning to the water again... all of that procedure taking about 3 hours, and it seems very exhausting for those poor things to move on the land. Very impressive to see this, not on TV or in the Zoo, but just there, sitting on the beach, right next to the animal!On day nine we finally made our way into Broome, everybody kind of exhausted, and so we spend the afternoon in the pool, not doing much at all.
On the last day then, we went into town, quite nice but very small, and just too hot to really stroll through the centre. For sunset then we went down to Cable Beach, some of us riding camels, the rest just watching and enjoying the scenary, before celebrating the -official- end of our trip, dining out and going to a bar.
About half the group stayed in Broome then, and us other half not looking forward to a 3day drive in a hot bus to Perth, driving about 13 hours each day, argh! No time to really stopp and have a look around, except for visiting a farm on the last day, that cares for baby kangaroos.... so we were able to cuddle the little Joeys :-)
And Sunday afternoon we finally arrived back in Perth, the civilisation as it seems, having had two weeks without hardly any reception on the mobile phone, haha.
Sooooo tired and filthy after this trip, but once again such a cool experience! A nice bunch of people, beautiful scenary and landscapes and amazing wildlife!
