Visit from Hongkong

There’s one question we’ve been wondering about a lot lately, and I think we have concluded equally about the answer… but let’s start in the beginning.

I am lucky to have a brother who is living in Hongkong. Now, flying from Hongkong to Western Australia is not such a big deal, only six hours and within the same time zone. So already a year ago we agreed to meet in Perth and travel together for a week. And that’s exactly what we did. Christoph came down on Friday last week and we drove up along the coast, from Perth to Denham (Shark Bay), where he eventually had to turn back. And we had such a great time together! Dag and I didn’t see too much of Robin while driving – he preferred joining his uncle and sitting in the front seat in his car.

We stopped for one night each in Cervantes (where we visited the famous Pinnacles), Geraldton and Kalbarri. Kalbarri National Park is one of the highlights along the West coast due to its inland river gorges with rock formations as old as 400 million years and its ocean cliffs plummeting to the waves below. Hadn’t it just been for the flies… which leads me to my initial question: what’s worse, the heat or the flies? After Geraldton, temperatures started to raise continuously all the way up to 41-42 degrees. That’s well above our limit. And when this heat is combined with flies (and we’re talking about thousands, no millions of them), it literally destroys the joy of visiting great places. We stopped at places like Natural Bridge, Island Rock and Red Bluff just south of Kalbarri to admire the sandstone cliffs, but it was annoying even with our fly nets. And each time we got back into the car, so did a hundred flies.

Luckily, they disappear when the sun goes down, but how should we sleep when it never gets cooler than 30… beats me! Nevertheless, Kalbarri National Park is a beautiful place and we drove to several lookouts, dropping the hikes though.

When we continued to Denham in Shark Bay (World Heritage Area), we were quite desperate and rented a cottage for the first night at the campsite. With air condition! The world looked differently next morning, we had all slept well. We spent one day driving to François Peron National Park on the northern end of Peron Peninsula. It is only suitable for 4WD vehicles, so Christoph joined us in our car. We drove all the way up to the cape on sandy tracks. Further on at Skipjack Point, our high expectations to this marine park were more than met.

Just below the lookout, we spotted a carcass, probably of a big sea turtle, lying at the beach. And just a few metres away in the water was a large lemon shark swimming gracefully back and forth.

After a little while we even saw a second one, much smaller than the first. And not enough with that! A group of eagle rays played in the water, next to them a huge shoal of yellow fish. The water was so clear that we nearly could start telling them, hadn’t it been so many. We were spellbound by this spectacle and even forgot the heat and the flies for the time-being.

Experiences like this make it worth-while to travel far and be challenged by harsh conditions as we had been! We will never forget this moment.

Our last day together we spent quite relaxed at Monkey Mia, watching the feeding of the dolphins, spotting sea turtles and observing the pelicans. In the evening we had to say goodbye to Christoph.

After almost three months of travelling, I can truly say that this is the best thing we’ve ever done, no doubt. We are writing our history, creating many good memories. At the same time, it is not just a walk in the park. The way we travel, we’re so exposed to nature. And that means quite a challenge here in Australia. I’m not even thinking about the all the dangerous creatures we meet. More challenging is the heat, strong winds, the cold at times, or heavy rain. And there we are in our small car with roof top tent, trying to keep our spirits up and make the best out of it. And believe me, we usually succeed. Except when the flies attack us. Because they are so much worse than the heat!

This is the point where I had planned to stop todays blog post, but I just quickly must tell about our drive out to Australia’s most westerly point: Steep Point. It’s a very long, very corrugated drive out to Edel Land, followed by a sandy track to Shelter Bay where we spent the night.

The beach and the landscape around are stunning, with Dirk Hartog Island in front of the big bay. And the fishing is obviously great. Not only did we meet several groups of young men spending up to two weeks here. Just as we arrived, one of them drew out a at least 2,5 meter long shark. After measuring it and taking the obligatory selfies, they released him again. We didn’t go swimming I must admit.

The drive from Steep Point to Thunder Bay the following day was one of the big highlights of our trip so far. It was not very far, around 25 kilometres, but it took us several hours. Again and again we had to stop to admire the view, or check the track before driving it, since there were many steep and soft sandy parts and others with sharp rocks. We even got bogged at one point, but thanks to our Maxtrax, we got out easily.

The coast is simply spectacular, with its cliffs rising 200 metres above the Indian Ocean. We didn’t meet a single car along that part and were happy in this remote wilderness. Nevertheless, after a long day driving in rough conditions, we were also relieved when we got back to civilisation safely. But it was a great adventure!