Upon leaving Albany this morning,
we did a big shop and sadly continued east.
Out of town we drove through lush grassy areas and a very small town
called Manypeaks where in the distance you could see lots of mountain tops,
hence the name I guess. Instead of
taking the long haul all the way to Esperance, we decided to turn off the main
road about half way, and took the 60km road to Bremer Bay. We passed lots of lovely scenery including
farms with healthy sheep and scattered bundles of rolled hay. Upon reaching Bremer Bay, we checked into
Bremer Bay Caravan Bay – I have to add that the showers here were fantastic ;
both great pressure and really hot. We
took off to see what was around and headed to Bremer Beach where there was a
sandbar dividing this from Wellstead Estuary.
It was a big contrast from the blue water of the ocean to the brown of
the Estuary with scattered paperbarks along the water’s edge but at least they
both looked clean; the pelicans were enjoying the estuary. Next along our drive, we headed up the hill
to the lone Bremer Bay wind turbine, 46 metres tall and 22 metre blades
constantly turning providing 40% of the town’s electricity. There was a great lookout up the hill further
overlooking the beach and estuary highlighting the difference in
water-colour. Fishery Beach was next and
this was a fairly calm pristine bay of water with its own boat ramp and fishing
jetty. We stopped at quite a few other
beaches along our drive including Short Beach (enjoying a kick of the footy
along the beach albeit a bit windy), Little Boat Harbour (and clambered our way
through rocks out to the point) and as close as we could get to Dillon Bay
(walking our way through scrub to get close enough to see it). It was extremely cold and windy by this point
so we headed back home and closed ourselves indoors for the night – there was
no tv reception here, thank goodness for movies though.
The following day we packed our
food for the day and drove into Fitzgerald River National Park, north of Bremer
Bay. It was quite a drive through many
dirt inland roads to get to but the first thing we noticed was the tall narrow
green and orange royal hakea plants that were scattered through the bush. As we drove on, Point Ann was in our
sights. This was a large brilliant blue
beach but it was far too cold to go swimming so instead we walked up to the
Point Ann Lookout, passing some rare hooded plovers along the way. As we walked up the side of the hill to get
to the lookout, Josh spotted a big goanna so we made our own track instead of
following the rocky path that had been used by others. Back at the car we drove nearby to St Mary
Inlet and pulled out our lunch. We had
to eat as fast as possible so that the flies didn’t carry our food away. We continued looking for adventure and found
a track that took us towards Trigelow Beach but as the track didn’t look all
that safe for the car we instead quick stepped it the rest of the way down the
rubber tyre mats. The kids had a race
back up the mats but I couldn’t see who won as I was still struggling to get
back up myself. We headed towards some
of the surrounding mountains, along the way spotting some beautiful banksias
called banksia coccinea so stopped for a quick picture before pulling into the carpark
of West Mount Barren, a climbable mountain at 340 metres high. There was only one other car here, a Mercedes
with the number plate FAMOUS… a bit odd to see in this area. The kids donned their water backpacks and we
grabbed out our own water and a snack for the top and we made our way up. The track was great, covered in white pebbles
so you couldn’t lose your way – however the wind was horrendous the higher you
got. We weren’t far from the top when
the wind got so strong that we felt like we’d literally be blown off the
mountain so we opted to stop here, enjoy the view and then make our way safely
back down for our snack back at the car.
As we exited the national park and made our way back home we passed a
sparkling river and a few big golden wheat farms. Back at the caravan the kids were after a bit
of fun so they pulled out some raw potatoes and we tried to learn how to
juggle. I just about got it – the kids
potatoes on the other hand had to be eaten for dinner because they were bruised
and beaten and wouldn’t have survived another few days.
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