Wednesday March 12

As we are about to leave Albany after a terrific five days and make one of our few ‘inland’ excursions to the Stirling Range and Porongurup National Parks, where we will hopefully be in a parks campground without internet connection I had best make the blog current!

Our journey to Albany was very pleasant, with a detour into Cheynes Beach and Waychinicup National Park (what a great name!), where what I initially thought were very tall, grey Grass Trees turned out to be Kingias. For those of you who may love ‘The Lorax’ as much as I do, these plants seem to me our version of the ‘Truffula Trees’ which were decimated to create ‘Thneeds’. Maybe I should take this up with Tony Abbott as a way of utilising at least one of our unproductive national parks!

We have enjoyed our time in Albany, going from history to seascapes in the blink of an eye! I will start with yet another of my far too frequent confessions of a lack of knowledge of our history and say that I had no idea that Albany was settled several years before Perth in 1836, when 23 convicts and their militia overseers arrived in the brig ‘Amity’ or that it was the port from which 30,000 Australian and New Zealand troops (and their horses) departed by ship for World War 1. The photos of the huge number of ships lined up in the harbour bring home the horror of it all.

We have walked up Mt Clarence, where the Desert Corps Memorial is located and enjoyed the views and driven up Mt Adelaide to visit the Princess Royal Fortress, which was established in 1893 as the first federal defence of Australia, to guard against the loss of Albany’s strategic port to an enemy naval squadron – so we had Portsea in the east and Albany in the west! In 1956 these coastal defences were dismantled, never having fired a shot.

Middleton Bay from Mt Clarence

King George Sound from Princess Royal Fortress

King George Sound & Vancouver Peninsula from Princess Royal Fort

Married Quarters, Princess Royal Fort

Magnificent stone work, Military Institute, Princess Royal Fort

On the side of Mt Adelaide we spotted more Kingias, which had responded to a recent fire by producing multiple flower stalks – a quite bizarre sight! Not many 'Thneeds' from these I am afraid!

We spent an informative but totally horrifying half day at Whale World, Albany’s historic whaling station. The Cheynes Beach Whaling Company operated here until 1978 and processed thousands of Sperm and Southern Right Whales. Walking around the site and hearing the sounds of the work of the whaling station so graphically recreated and seeing the machinery used to rend these whales into oil and other products was truly awful.

Flensing deck

Whale chaser - there were 4 of these operating

It took the refined oil from 103, 50 tonne Sperm Whales to fill
this tank & I am there just to give it a sense of perspective
not because I am impressed by it!

The whole whale, apart from the teeth, was rendered and
what was left after the cooking to remove the oil was
dried into these 'solubles' which were used for stock food,
fertiliser etc. Enough said!!!!!

Rumour had it that the Salmon were starting to run along the coast and as there are a couple of renowned Salmon fishing spots in Albany, we spent Monday morning at one - Salmon Holes, a stunning beach in the Torndirrup National Park. Sadly Murray didn’t snag a Salmon (neither did anyone else as it turned out), but he did catch a herring and who could ever regret a morning in such a beautiful spot.

Foolish fishers get washed off these rocks with monotonous regularity

The granite headlands, limestone cliffs and white sandy beaches of Torndirrup National Park are pounded by the Southern Ocean.  The rocks of this area were left behind when Australia and Antarctica parted 45 million years ago, so looking across the spectacular granite blocks of The Gap and Natural Bridge and imagining all this was pretty incredible.

Cable Beach

The Gap

Natural Bridge - wouldn't want to be crossing when this collapses!

It is really difficult to stop taking photos of these amazing rocks!

West Cape Howe is the most southern promontory of WA and on Tuesday we visited this national park and once again, were just astounded at the beauty of the coast. Travelling into the park we encountered our first patches of karri forest, before going through more superb heathland to the stunning granite and black dolorite cliffs of Shelley Beach Lookout and Shelley Beach. The Lookout is a popular launch site for hang-gliders and paragliders, some of whom were launching themselves off the platforms whilst we were there. As a confirmed coward, I was astounded that anyone could do such a thing and was absolutely incredulous when a French fellow and his daughter, who was about 6 or 7, took off on a shared flight.

Looking north from Shelley Beach Lookout

Shelley Beach 

The stories this little girl will have to tell!

Down on the beach we watched the gliding activity overhead, enjoyed the scenery, chatted to fishers, were entranced by a seal which was entertaining us all by playing with a large fish it had caught and reminded ourselves once again how lucky we are.

The black dolorite is so impressive, especially against the
 turquoise water and white sand

The seal tossing its fish around, with one very hopeful seagull flying close overhead

Today was well spent in Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve and Gull Rock National Park, to the east of Albany. It is almost unbelievable that we keep visiting these places which are so spectacular. Long before European settlement, Two Peoples Bay was originally named ‘Baie des Deux Peuples’, following a chance meeting of French and American mariners, in honour of the two new republics.

Two Peoples Bay

Little Beach is another of those superb spots with massive granite headlands, white sand beaches and turquoise water that we have been so spoilt with along this southern coast.

Dotted through the the wetter areas of the park were the brilliant orange flowers of the Swamp Bottlebrush (Beaufortia sparsa) – another wondrous moment of seeing plants we have used in our garden in their original environment.

Gull Rock National Park is on the outskirts of Albany and supports exceptional botanical diversity. The granite rocks of Ledge Beach were a perfect place for lunch and became even more special when some of what we now know were King’s Skinks, which had been sunning themselves quite happily on the rocks before we arrived to disturb them, came back out to share our apple.

The rock fetish continues! The ship is waiting in Middleton Bay to come into the port 

King's Skink

So ends our time in and around Albany. We won’t have any beaches for the next three days, but we are anticipating some pretty spectacular scenery and vegetation, so stay tuned!

Monday March 10

Well and truly time for an update now that we are back with internet connection, so here goes!

When last heard from a week ago, we were about to trek to Bremer Bay, which we successfully managed , so on Tuesday and Wednesday we were camped across the road from the Bremer River estuary and down the road from yet more beautiful beaches. Bremer Bay is a lovely little place, popular for holidaying and fishing and we can well understand why. The Point Henry Drive Trail took us to two of the lookouts in Bremer Bay (one of which was used to spot salmon when the industry was in its heyday) and to some absolutely superb beaches - the whole coast is just a succession of these!

Bremer River and bay

Native Dog Beach

The waves at Native Dog Beach were awe-inspiring!

One of the most exciting things about Bremer Bay for me was the birds in the estuary, which could be seen really well from the Estuary Walk Trail.  My Christmas tripod allowed for lots of playing with the camera (and resulted in lots and lots of photos to sort!), whilst a couple of local fishermen added to my excitement when they fed the frames of the many bream they had caught to the Pelicans.

A proper feeding frenzy!

Black-winged Stilt

Red-winged Avocet

I can't think of many more graceful sights than an Egret taking flight

We decided that we would spend the next two nights at Quaalup Homestead which was built in 1858 by the Wellstead family, who had settled Bremer Bay. It is now a 40 acre property, which along with five neighbouring properties, is surrounded by the Fitzgerald River National Park.

Before entering the park, we made use of the wash down station to ensure that we were not bringing contaminated soil into the park, as some of the parks in the south west are badly affected by die-back.

Quaalup turned out to be a bit of a strange place, but it did allow us to have a look around the western side of the park without having to drive back into Bremer Bay each night.

Quaalup Homestead

A bit of four wheel driving along the Gairdner River on , brought us down to the Gordon Inlet and the estuary, which has not been open for some eight years, so we had a long walk into a fairly ferocious wind to get to Trigelow Beach. Having arrived, we didn't tarry too long as it was not terribly pleasant.

An exhausted walker!

On the way back we got a bit more serious about the 4x4 stuff and made to down to the river for a spot of fishing – no luck though!  Did see a great monitor on the way down.

We decided that we would make the trip out to Point Ann early the next morning to see if we could beat the wind and I was only momentarily distracted by some Fairy-wrens which were hopping around whilst we were having breakfast. I initially thought that they were Blue-breasted Fairy-wrens as that is what we had been seeing at Hopetoun, but after further consideration I am wondering if they were not Splendid Fairy-wrens. The big problem is that we only saw females and one male which I presume was still developing his breeding plumage, so it was no use at all to rank amateurs such as us! We are going to need advice from our bird expert friends, so here are the photos I managed to get:

Our journey to Point Ann was not wind-free despite the planning, so we enjoyed the views a great deal without feeling any desire to go and sit on the beach and be sand-blasted. From July to October, the Southern Right Whales come into this bay to calve and apparently it is not uncommon to see 40 whales close to the shore from the Point Ann observation platforms - another reason to return!

Point Ann Beach, looking across to East Mt Barren 

One bit of excitement was rescuing some people who had become bogged in the very soft sand as they tried to get onto Point Ann beach – we are still horrified how many beaches have cars tearing up and down on them.

Driving through the park had us exclaiming yet again about the amazing beauty of the Royal Hakeas, the foliage of which on some was the brightest yellow. Not sure if this is the new growth – more expert advice required please!

Flowers coming!

Some of the other plants growing here also have fascinating foliage – who needs flowers when you have things like this to look at:

New growth on a Dryandra plumosa

Cauliflower Hakeas grow round like this and those leaves are SO tough and sharp!

Back to Quaalup Homestead via West Mt. Barren - it was very hazy across the park, so the photos do not have that incredible colour and sharpness that we get a bit spoilt by.

Driving towards West Mt barren

Finished our day with the ‘Nature Walk’ at Quaalup Homestead, which we presume was established by the previous owners of the property. We spent a very enjoyable ninety minutes or so following a botanical trail on which many of the plants were labelled. As we have been quite frustrated in the parks by a lack of information which would allow us to identify more of the pants we are seeing, this was wonderful and added a whole extra dimension to our time in this heathland ecosystem.

Possum Banksia - so called because the 'dead' flower
becomes really large and looks hairy (you can see a bit
of one below this flower)

 As we drove away from Quaalup Homestead along Devils Creek Road, early on Saturday morning, we disturbed a really large flock of endangered Carnabys Black Cockatoos and what a truly majestic and awe-inspiring sight it was to see these huge black and white birds all around us - their slow, deep wing-beats lifted them up and away in what seemed like an almost laconic manner.  Thinking about their decline because of land clearance and habitat loss made me seethe all over again when I recalled Tony Abbott's comments of a few days ago about there being too many national parks. These people will not be happy until we have exploited every creature and ecosystem in this country to death and old travellers like us will have nothing of worth left to visit so as to replenish our souls and our spirits.

We are now enjoying a few days in Albany, so will add some photos of our time here before we nick off on Thursday.

Monday March 3

Quick update before we decamp tomorrow, but I must start with a wonderful statement by Graham, the camp host at Stokes National Park, which I unfortunately forgot to include in that post:

“They talk about 5 Star accommodation, well look at this - this is million star accommodation!”

All those who have, like us, spent many hours staring in wonder at the star-filled skies of outback Australia will know just what he means. At Lucky Bay we stood with Sal, Scott and the girls and Julia and Selgai,watching for shooting stars, over-awed as we contemplated the vastness of our own galaxy and however many more there are out there.

Anyway, back to the job at hand, which is to attempt a brief (???) account of our trip from Stokes National Park to Hopetoun and our couple of days here. 

Happily we were able to get off the highway not too far from Stokes and travel along the coast – very dusty roads, but some great views. At Fence Road (appropriately!) we spied the start of the No. 1 Rabbit Proof Fence (does this mean that there is more than one fence?), which runs from Starvation Bay to Eighty Mile Beach in the north west of WA. 

Morning coffee at Starvation Bay was a very pleasant stop – as it is the Labour Day weekend in WA, there were lots of people camped here.

The dust turned from red to white as the road went from sandstone to limestone, so by the time we arrived in Hopetoun Murray’s bike was looking very interesting indeed!

Hopetoun was once the port for the Phillips River Goldfield, which reached its peak in 1911 and had previously served sealers, whalers and early settlers. Murray has taken the opportunity to fish from Flathead Point (the name is no guarantee of success), the jetty and Five Mile Beach, after herring, garfish and squid – this hunter-gathering is getting serious!

Early morning fishing at Flathead Point, looking across to Fitzgerald River NP

Even the kelp looks beautiful in the early morning light!

Amazing limestone cliffs at Five Mile Beach

We also took the opportunity of other ways of stocking up on seafood, as there were a couple of fishing boats tied up at the jetty.

Our reason for coming to Hopetoun, however, had nothing to do with any of these things – it was so that we could visit the eastern part of the Fitzgerald River National Park which covers 330,000 hectares and is one of the largest and most botanically significant national parks in Australia. It is the Core Zone of the Fitzgerald Biosphere, recognised for its rich and unique biodiversity.

This incredible botanical diversity - 2,500 plant species, including some 50 endemic species, exists because of the complexity of landforms and soils and this mosaic of soils has brought about woodlands, shrublands and kwongan heathlands. In 1989, the then UNESCO Assistant Director General said,

“The Fitzgerald River National Park is without doubt the most important Mediterranean ecosystem reserve in the world. It stands out for its scientific, conservation and educational values in the same way that the Galapagos Islands do.”

I must say that it seems pretty special to be able to stand in a place like this!

The very small part we spent yesterday visiting boasts a (should I say ‘another’) magnificent coastline, with rocky headlands and white sandy beaches, inlets and striking ranges.

Culham Inlet and the Southern Ocean from Barren lookout

East Mt Barren and its white quartzite rocks

West Beach from Cave Point

Looking east towards East Mt Barren from Cave Point

Because the vegetation where we were is predominantly heathland, the views across the ranges seem never-ending as there were no tall trees. Happily, a 78,000 hectare area of this park is designated as Wilderness and Special Conservation protection.

Heathland with Royal Hakeas 'poking' up (more about these soon)

Happily also, because it is such a special area I have been able to get my hands on lots of interpretive material, so I have been able to find answers to questions I didn’t even know I had until I started reading! But . . . relax – I am not about to start repeating any of it and will let the descriptions of the photos tell some of those stories.

Hamersley Inlet - more beautiful paperbarks and another fishing opportunity

Across Hamersley Inlet towards Woogarup Range

Mylies Beach - and we had it all to ourselves!

Whilst spring is the peak wildflower season (and we will just have to come back again one spring time), there are still many flowers to be seen and the foliage of the Royal Hakea is so spectacular who needs flowers!

Royal Hakea (Hakea victoria)

Oak-leaved Dryandra (Dryandra quercifolia)

Barrens Clawflower (Calothamnus validus)

As in the other heathland parks we have visited, Phytophthora dieback disease, a soil-borne pathogen, is a very real threat to 40% of the flora species, especially after rain and substantial measures are in place to try and control the spread of infected soil. Some areas in the south west are already affected, which often leads to catastrophic decline and the thought of further infestation is really horrendous.

Tomorrow morning will see us on our way to Bremer Bay (shock, horror – it is about 240km away!) so that we can marvel at the western side of the park. Hopefully we will be able to stay in the park for at least some of our time here.

Will leave you with the first sunset photo of our trip – just enough cloud last night for this lovely shot looking across Flathead Point towards Fitzgerald River National Park.