Beth and Mark's Gap Year 2014: Pulling the boots back on

We continue our southward journey from Kalgoorlie to Hyden, ostensibly to see Wave Rock. Hyden is a small wheat farming town seemingly nowhere near anything else, and farmers in these parts have over the years used the natural rock formations close to town to catch, channel and dam that most precious of commodities out here, rain water. Until the 1960s the only real value of the interesting shaped rocks was retaining water. Then along came an amateur photographer whose picture of the wave shaped rock at Hyden won a major US competition and was subsequently published in a National Geographic feature article. All of a sudden Hyden was transformed from sleepy backwater to tourist Mecca. I sense that the locals are still trying to figure out whether they are a tourist town or a farming town. Given that they receive something like 100,000 tourists a year, I think I have the answer for them. Wave rock is amazing, and in itself makes the trip to Hyden worthwhile, but there are all sorts of other rocks to clamber over, wildflowers galore and a nice little walking trail - all of which meant hat we had a lovely time there. We tramped over every square inch of Hyden Rock (of which Wave Rock is just a small part) and also took a long walk over another granite outcrop near Hyden (The Humps).

Interesting happenings in the caravan park at Hyden. We are not in the high tourist season at the moment, so the caravan park had heaps of free space, but for some reason which is beyond me, the park manager seemed to think that it was important to crowd people together in one small corner. Perhaps she thought this would bring about a sense of community. First night this was ok. Apart from a bit of snoring here and there it was quite peaceful. Second night though a group of mining workers moved in, and we could tell that they were likely to be boisterous. Sadly though the park manager had a different sense and continued her community minded approach rather than banish them to a far flung corner of the park. Needless to say drinking, swearing and generally oafish behaviour ensued. Beth wasn't too disturbed though, because there was a clearly documented rule that noisy behaviour must not continue beyond 10:00pm, so although the swearing was offensive, at least it would all stop at 10:00. I didn't quite know how to break it to Beth that people don't always obey rules, and of course these folk did not. Now I know well that people in glass houses should not throw stones and appearance is not everything, but in addition to their poor social conduct, these mining chappies were decidedly unattractive. So imagine my surprise when a couple of young French backpackers (female) wandered along and started chatting these coves up. Goodness me girls, what are you thinking (free drinks probably). There are lots of nice boys you could be chatting up, these are what we call yobbos, and you should leave them alone. Thankfully the yobbos were bemused by the attention and the girls eventually gave up and went back to their tents. Things were quiet by midnight, which was better than I expected. Whilst I was lying in bed getting annoyed by the loudness and silliness which was keeping me awake my mind turned to revenge. Being vengeful is not nice. I know that, but still thoughts of getting up at 5:00am and making loud noises under their window would not leave my head, and I went to sleep with those thoughts still wandering about. I did wake at 5:00, or at least I was woken at 5:00 by loud noises under MY window. It appears our yobbos had an early shift!!!

You may have noticed that I am referring more often to walking. We are starting to get back to where we left off before heading to Europe, and seem to be quite easily achieving our 10km per day target. So easily in fact that Beth has decided to add a bit of elevation to our challenge, so off we go to the highest mountain range in these parts, the Stirling Range. With its highest point (Bluff Knoll) being a miserable 1,095 metres above sea level, you may well scoff and claim that these are not mountains, they are molehills. Whilst this is certainly not Switzerland, I can assure you that some of the walks that we did were at least as challenging as anything we did in Switzerland and Austria. The Europeans tend to take a meandering path up steep hills with lots of switchbacks to reduce the gradients. The tracks here are not so gentle and tend to take a beeline to the top. We did 5 mountains in two and a half days, and two of those were class 5 walks (Toolbrunup and Talyuberlup). These are the ones with signs up saying if you are not fit and agile and comfortable with steep climbs turn back now - despite my failure on all three counts we continued on. The walks in the Stirling Ranges are sensational. They are definitely challenging, but the rewards are well worth the effort. Beautiful views, stunning wildflowers, and a little adrenalin rush here and there as you scramble over some of the steep exposed bits. The tallest mountain here is Bluff Knoll at 1,095 metres, and the walk to the top is a class 4, very steep, but should be a breeze, so we charge up. About halfway up I started feeling queasy and suggested to Beth that we rest a bit, whereupon my queasiness escalated to cold sweat and full on nausea. I suggested that Beth continue up and I would either catch her up, meet her back where I had curled up to die, or meet back at the bottom. After a little rest I did stumble a few more steps upward, but clearly my body was not thrilled with this idea and ordered me to turn around, so slowly I made my way back to the carpark. I wish I could report a sneaky snakebite, some exotic disease, or even altitude sickness as the basis for my malaise, but I think it may have been a touch of self inflicted dehydration. Surprising because generally I a very good at keeping up my fluid intake. Just goes to show you need to be ever vigilant.

We had a great time at Stirling Ranges, but three days without a shower (and without coffee and cake) really did demand a civilisation break, so rather than venture straight on to our next National Park stay at Fitzgerald River, we headed for a caravan park at Bremer Bay on the edge of the western end of the National Park for a couple of days. Bremer Bay is a lovely place which certainly delivers all our comfort needs, but the real beauty is in the National Park where we start to realize that this part of the southern coastline is home to some of the most beatiful beaches in the world. The sand is pure white and silky smooth, the water is brilliant blue, and the rocks jagged and spectacular. There are two public access points to Fitzgerald River NP. One on the east side of the park near Bremer Bay, and one on the east side near Hopetoun 300km away, so whilst we are based at Bremer Bay we discover the west side of the park (including a fair chunk of the spectacular Mamang hiking trail - superb beaches, cliff top vistas and masses of wildflowers) then drive to the east side to camp within the park. A lot of money has been spent recently to provide roads and facilities for visitors to this park (we overheard someone mention $40m) and much of this seems to have been concentrated in the east side of the park where a spectacular new sealed ocean road takes us to our palatial camping ground at Hamersley Inlet (stainless steel pit toilets, gas barbecues, well drained level sites - but alas, no showers again). Our district focus here is walking, and we manage over two days to cover most of the Hakea walking trail, which whilst less endowed with wildflowers than the Mamang Trail on the west side (with the exception of the really interesting royal hakea), is even more splendidly blessed with a gorgeous coastline. Hamersley Beach is just impossibly beautiful, and is certainly one of the most beautiful beaches I have had the privilege to walk along, and we had it all to ourselves - magical.

Although there were very few people about, we managed to be very sociable at Fitzgerald River NP. Our only neighbours when we arrived were a 70 something Swiss couple (I am convinced half the populace of Switzerland are touring Australia) who we struck up a conversation with that lasted 2 hours. We seemed to exchange life stories as best we could in our language challenged circumstances, but the most interesting thing was that they were on their 10th visit to Australia, during which time they had tackled most of our iconic sites and roadways and had travelled more than160,000km. More than most Australians would ever do!!! A lovely experience made even nicer by us being presented with a piece of swiss chocolate each (which certainly helped to ease my cake withdrawals). We also bumped into a couple that we had encountered a couple of times in the Stirling Ranges and struck up a bit of a friendship. They shared our enthusiasm for walking, and each afternoon after our walking efforts, we all repaired to our place for drinks and nibbles under the awning. Very civilised (albeit rudimentary).

Come time to leave and the weather, which had been so kind to us, suddenly turned against us. It rained so heavily that we abandoned any thoughts of packing up (we still have nightmares about our last ill fated wet weather pack up at Katoomba), so instead we headed into Hopetoun to weather the storm in the local cafe. Despite another three showerless days, we were not turned away. It appears that customers are few and far between at this time of year, so any port in a storm so to speak. We had morning tea, and then lunch in the cafe, and were thinking about afternoon tea when the rain finally abated. By the time we arrived back at the camp the sun was just starting to peek through the clouds, so we decided to move quickly and have a go at packing up and getting to Esperance before 6:00pm. Amazingly we were able to pack everything up 90% dry, and were on the road to Esperance with plenty of time up our sleeves. No sooner had we finished patting ourselves on the back than we realised that the putrid weather from Hopetoun had been moving slowly eastward and seemed destined to arrive in Esperance about the same time we did. Oh well, we avoided packing up in the wet, but I think we set a new world record for setting up in the wet. Let's hope we didn't miss anything important.

We will spend a few days in Esperance, then a couple of days in the Cape Le Grand NP before heading back across the plain towards home, so next post will likely come from the other side of the Nullarbor. Til then....