Western Australia, Part 2

We pick up our time in Western Australia after we left the Exmouth area for Shark Bay. Both peninsulas are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

We set up camp in the town of Denham.

We should mention here that when we first picked a drive down the west coast of Australia as part of our trip, we anticipated that we would spend much of the time driving along the ocean with views like this:

But with towns few and far between In the state of Western Australia, that turned out not to be the case. The main highway, Route 1 (which circumnavigates Australia) is usually miles inland - probably to avoid tsunami and cyclone issues. Thus, for much of the time, this was our view:

It was only when we poked out to the coast or into a national park that we'd find the beautiful stuff.

While in the Shark Bay area, we visited Shell Beach. This beach, rather than being formed from sand, is made up of billions of Coquina shells. They thrive in the waters there which are twice as salty as regular sea water. The beach has a series of ridges showing various high water marks of the past. The shells are 10 feet deep or more in most areas and have cemented together over time.

While we were working our way south along the Australian coast, we found higher and higher concentrations of black flies which continually buzzed one's face and ears. Fortunately, we had mosquito nets and wore them for much of the next few days.

We visited Francois Peron National Park, north of Shark Bay, on a day-long small group tour (you need 4WD to get into the park, and our campervan only had 2WD).

It was quite a bumpy ride throughout the day.

The National Park is on the site of an old sheep station, and features orange dunes and cliffs contrasting with white beaches and turquoise water.

We saw rays, dolphins, and dudongs (similar to manatees) in the water below.

Driving back we found a rare "thorny devil" by the side of the road.

At day's end, the we had a nice soak at the old ranch house in a hot tub fed by artisinal underground springs.

Our last day in the Shark Bay area, we visited the Monkey Mia reserve in the national park. It's not clear how it got that particular name. Its main claims to fame are the friendly dolphins that come up to the beach each morning to be fed by park rangers and volunteers. It's a popular attraction and people were lined up early to see.

Monkey Mia also had a large flock of pelicans.

It was time to head south along long stretches of straight road. We "freedom camped" (off the grid) twice.

It's useful to note here that during our time in Western Australia, we saw relatively few classic Australian mammals. We didn't see any kangaroos, although we glimpsed a few small wallabies around sunset one day. No koalas. No wombats. Even the unique Australian birds were few and far between. We did see a number of cockatiels, but no parrots and no kookaburras. We did manage to see a few emus, including a mother with three chicks, but we couldn't get them to hold still enough to take a picture. We only managed to capture this family:

We visited Kalbarri National Park, another place famous for its red gorges cut by rivers. One of the main attractions is the Skywalk, a set of cantilevered platforms that extend out from cliffside over the Murchison River.

Near the Skywalk is a natural arch called Natures Window. It's a popular spot for family photos. Given the long photo line, we opted to just take a quick picture of the Window in between families.

We also found beautiful wildflowers in the area.

We continued toward Perth, stopping on our way to see the Pink Lake. Its color is caused by the algae that live in the water.

We also visited an area called The Pinnacles Desert in Nambung National Park. These are limestone pillars formed underground 500,000 years ago by processes that are not completely understood, and which emerged through erosion some time in the last 5,000 years.

View from Pinnacles overlook, although it's a desert, it's just a few kilometers away from the ocean.

Leaving the Pinnacles area, we traveled to Lake Thetis within the national park. Lake Thetis is one of a very few places in the world where you can find living stromatolites, cyanobacteria-based structures that were the first known form of life on Earth some 3.5 billion years ago. The stromatolites in Lake Thetis are at least 3,500 years old and still growing.

Although the days had been 90-100 degrees in the Broome area, the temperature dropped to the 60s and 70s as we approached Perth. It was time to pack away the t-shirts and shorts and break out long pants and fleece. We camped near the beach town of Lancelin to start organizing ourselves for the next phase of our trip. In addition to being quite chilly, the winds were fearsome. Someone told us that W.A. stands for both "Western Australia" and "windy always."

However, it appeared to be great weather for kite surfing.

Everything stored in the van needed to be gathered and repacked in our suitcases.

We drove the final two hours south to the Perth and settled in Fremantle, a beach suburb. Older than Perth, it's more low key and more bohemian than the city, with great restaurants. The architecture reminded us of New Orleans. The city has gone through revitalization with old buildings taking on new roles.

Our hotel, the Hougomont, looked classic from the front, until you discovered it was built from shipping containers!

We had two full days in the Perth area. On the first day, we took a boat out to Rottnest Island, a popular day tour and family vacation spot as well as a nature preserve.

We arrived early enough to be able to rent e-bikes and ride 22 kilometers (14 miles) around the perimeter of the island.

There were lots of beautiful beaches where people were snorkeling in cold water and enjoying a sunny, warm day.

At one end of the island a group of sea lions were hanging around.

Getting back into the island's one town and family vacation mecca, we came upon some quokkas, small marsupials that Rottnest Island is famous for. They stand like kangaroos but use their small front arms for stability as they hop with their back legs. Some were quite tame, obviously tourist-fed, and persistent.

We returned to Fremantle around 3:15 pm and walked to the Fremantle Prison for a tour. The prison was originally built to house convicts deported from England to Australia. It was expanded in the 1800s and served as Western Australia's maximum security prison all the way till 1991. After seeing the insides, we wondered if it was used as a set for one of Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible movies. It was appaling to think it was used so recently. It is now a UNESCO world heritage site in recognition of its history with early convicts transported from Great Britain in the 18th century.

Our tour focused on the prison's time as the maximum security facility.

Anti-suicide nets were added to the cell blocks in the 1950s

Not surprisingly, Aboriginals made up a disproportionately-large portion of the prison population. After art classes were made available, some aboriginal prisoners decorated their cells. They often painted landscape scenes - the scenes they missed the most.

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A note about aboriginals: We'd seen a good number of aboriginals up in the Broome area and the Dampier Peninsula at the beginning of our Western Australia trip. However, we did not run into many others until we reached Perth. In America, we tend of thing of Australian aboriginals as a single people. In fact they were many nations with different languages and customs. Here's a map of the various tribes:

In recent years, there's been a country-wide effort to acknowledge the aboriginal people, who were treated as badly for many years as we treated our Native Americans. When we would take a tour or visit a building, we would usually hear a tribute like the following: "I begin today by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we gather today, and pay my respects to their Elders past and present. I extend that respect to Aboriginal peoples here today."

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We'd arranged to have election ballots e-mailed to us in Australia. However, they needed to be returned physically to America, so we went to Australia Post to send them.

On our last full day in the area, we visited a didgeridoo seller. During our 1987 visit, Doug had tried out some didgeridoos and was always sorry he hadn't bought one back then. The seller (who originally hailed from Japan) walked us through how best to pick one out and learn to play the instrument. Doug managed to get some fairly good sounds out of them. Will the didgeridoo become a staple of our Christmas caroling parties? We decided to wait till we returned to America to order one - our luggage is full enough as it is.

We also took the train from Fremantle into Perth and walked around the city with its modern architecture and construction projects everywhere. The weather turned bad and we had to cut short our visit to the renowned Kings Park botanical garden.

Our Western Australian adventures were at an end, and on Saturday, September 28 we flew to Tasmania. More about that in our next blog entry!