Lucky Bay to Sandy Cape

We’ve hit the big smoke!

The time from about Broome to Perth felt like it flew by but in reality it took us about six weeks to get from there to here. As we got closer to Perth the towns got closer together and we found we had some big days fitting in all the things we wanted to see.

We found ourselves in Lucky Bay at the start of the school holidays, which was also the King’s Birthday long weekend, AND it also marked ONE YEAR of the trip! Because we couldn’t book it, we made sure we arrived early to get a good spot which we managed to do. It’s a really nice beach camp with limited facilities (although more facilities than I was expecting – bins, toilets and a dump point) so it’s no surprise that it’s a popular place.

Lucky Bay is halfway between Kalbarri to the north and Port Gregory to the south. Originally we’d plan to stay in both spots but when I realised there was a campground in-between them we changed our plans. I’m pretty glad we did as Port Gregory was a bit of a non-event. There is a quite spectacular pink lake there and some interesting convict ruins but not enough there to fill three nights.

In the other direction however, there is plenty to see and do around Kalbarri. The waterfront area is quite nice and they feed the pelicans each morning which was quite interesting. The national park is the main attraction however so we planned a couple of days out there. It was the usual story with the dog, we had to split up and go separately, and then the kids had to do everything twice. The good thing about that is each of us gets a day on our own at camp to work or study and the kids don’t seem to care that they see it all twice.

On the day I went it was the Saturday of the long weekend so it was packed with people. We went to the skywalk (which is actually two skywalks, both of which are impressive). We then went out to the “Nature’s Window” which is a hole in a rock that looks out over the valley. It is popular with those who care about “the ‘Gram” (which I do not) so we had to battle the influencers to get the obligatory shot through the window.

Then we went on the Z Bend trail which was a pretty fun walk up and down ladders and climbing through skinny rock bits. Unfortunately there were a lot of people there so we had to do a bit of queuing to get through it all.

After Lucky Bay we moved on to Geraldton which is the second biggest city in WA. The kids were very excited about this as they have a strange obsession with Aldi. Geraldton’s Aldi was the first we’d seen since Murray Bridge in the Adelaide Hills back in May so of course we had to go there first. We were almost completely out of food too so it wasn’t a bad place to stop. After the kids had got their Aldi fix and we’d crammed all the shopping in the car we went and set up at the local caravan park. We decided to stay in town here as we were only there for three nights so thought we’d be close to all the things we wanted to see. It was quite a nice caravan park actually so we were happy enough to set up there.

I took the kids to the Geraldton museum one day where we learned a bit more about the Batavia which was a Dutch East Indies ship heading from Europe to Indonesia. It hit the reef of WA and went down with its rather large cargo of silver. Some of those onboard made it to a nearby island where, due to a lack of water and food it was decided to start killing some of them off to relieve the strain on the resources. At one point a faction took to a rowboat to find another, better island (which they did) and others rowed all the way to Indonesia to get help (although it was more about the silver than saving lives). There was a whole lot of mutiny, some really annoyed people in Indonesia who wanted to recover the silver (which they mostly managed to do) and quite a loss of life due to murder rather than the shipwrecking itself.

It’s a pretty amazing story really. I see that Peter Fitzsimmons has just written a book about it so I should add it to my list at some point.

While we were in Geraldton we also popped down to Greenough which is not only home to sideways trees (caused by being subjected to strong winds all the time) but an old town that has been turned into a museum. We wandered around there, and in and out of the buildings for a bit (bonus points for being dog-friendly, although the llamas on site weren’t too keen on Jett).

After Geraldton it was on to Sandy Cape. I hadn’t really realised until a couple of days before we were to get there that this is one of the most popular places to go. You can’t book, and it was still school holidays (and a Friday) so we got there as early as we could to get a spot. We managed to get one right down the end well away from the main campsite (2km further down, on a sand track). It was a magic spot right on a little clifftop looking out to sea. Of course sea clifftops = wind, but how bad could it be? (Bad, as we found out).

We thought we might have got lucky and been the only ones to find this little spot but alas, by nightfall there were five other campers all crammed in there. There was barely any room to move in the main camp area though so I still think we did well (and it cleared out a bit after that first night too – maybe because of the increasing winds?).

Once we’d set up we popped down to Jurien Bay for a look. The kids enjoyed the playground and we went for a bit of a walk along the waterfront. On another day we went a bit further down to Cervantes and took turns hanging out on the waterfront there while the other went to see the Pinnacles. I was quite impressed with the Pinnacles which are basically thousands of limestone rocks sticking up out of the sand (which was an unusually bright yellow colour). Jim wasn’t so impressed, not too sure why, perhaps he’s been spoiled with other more impressive sights of late.

We spent the last day hanging around camp. I watched a movie with the kids and Jim worked his way through his uni assignments. The wind steadily increased throughout the day, and being a westerly was blowing straight off the sea and into our tent. The forecast didn’t look good so at 10pm I suggested we get up and drop the tent. Winds were already gusting at over 50km/hr and had been for hours and were forecast to get up to around 70km/hr (and the forecast likes to remind you that it could actually end up being more than that.

So we packed everything up, dropped the tent and moved into the car. I told the kids to just pretend they were on an aeroplane. Despite the broken sleep I think we made the right decision as the winds howled all night and the rain was coming in sideways. Of course we were awake at dawn so we just got up and hooked the trailer up and drove away. It was a 7:30am departure which I think might have been our earliest ever!

So that was a bit of excitement to end the remote part of our trip. We arrived in Perth before lunchtime on that day, very tired and a bit sad that we were leaving the regional areas behind us (it’s not all done of course – we haven’t even got to the Nullabor yet!)

So we’re in Perth this week and so far have been catching up on chores – new tyres, a medical appointment, new clothes for Jim should he need to front up to job interviews, picking up post etc. I’ve been to Perth many times before and Jim has been a few times too so we’re not too worried about cramming in all the sightseeing. We’re staying out at the Swan Valley which has been nice – we’ve visited a brewery and a winery so far and are off to see a couple more today.

It’s been a busy few weeks, but now that we are in a more populated area we’ll slow the moving down back to being weekly which should hopefully help us all ease into the last few months of the trip.