Beth and Mark's Gap Year 2014: Going up the road and back again October 20 to October 27

Well we have endured the death by 1000 airline meals, watched enough movies to last a lifetime, done the mad dash to visit folks back home, dealt with things which have accrued over several months of absence, and finally we are now back on the road again to complete the last leg of our Australia tour. I have to admit that once we arrived home there was a hint of temptation to stay put, but we will be home soon enough so we pushed that temptation to one side.

Once back in Perth (more meals, more movies) we again caught up with family and friends and were reunited with our car and trailer which had been in the loving care of Beth's brother and sister in law. They had survived the three months of our absence very well. One small drama. A stray twig carelessly left across the rubber seal of the trailer's boot by whoever packed it away (not me, surely) meant that much of the torrent rained down upon Perth over winter was ingested into the boot space. Not to worry, the sun shines bright and long in the western spring, so contents were strewn across the nature strip to dry, converting a leafy Cottesloe street to something resembling a jumble sale. Luckily things dried quickly before we could drive down real estate values.

Our first little trip was a short excursion to Ledge Point just north of Perth to fulfil a promise to take our 14 year old nephew Alex camping for the weekend. We chose Ledge Point because it has a beach and there seemed to be plenty of activities like swimming, boating and sand boarding which would appeal to a 14 year old. Alex however had different ideas. In many respects Alex is not quite your average 14 year old boy, but when it comes to eating he brought back memories of the eating machine that was our son from about 10 years of age onwards. Our offers of energetic pursuits were courteously declined, whilst any hint of food offerings were eagerly accepted. No sooner had Alex devoured a monster burger for lunch than he was asking what was for afternoon tea. What would you like for afternoon tea Alex? Another burger would be fine. Whilst we did not accede to a full on 5 meal a day burger regime, we were more lax with calorie counting than would normally be the case and even went so far as to venture beneath the Golden Arches for a meal (if you would call it that). Alex and I had a lovely time, but I think that Beth was feeling a bit bloated by the time were returned him to his parents. During the small interludes between food we did manage to do a bit of sightseeing and window shopping (pets and toys predominately) which was also good fun.

After dropping Alex off we head north again. We did entertain thoughts of returning to Coral Bay to help me face my snorkelling demons again, but instead opted for the closer Shark Bay region. We are playing this leg of our trip pretty much by ear and not planning too far ahead at this stage. After an overnight stop at Geraldton to stock up on food and effect some minor repairs we headed for Denham on Shark Bay where we would stay 3 nights. Denham is a very isolated seaside town which seems to rely heavily upon tourism to survive, and although there were a few people in town whilst we were there, one got the sense that the town was doing it tough. It looked a little frayed around the edges and half the businesses in town were either closed or for sale.

Just 30 Km across the Peron Peninsula from Denham is the Monkey Mia reserve famous for the "wild" dolphin feeding program which takes place there. Beth is quite fond of dolphins, so we were never going to miss this, and a full day is set aside for our visit. There are up to 3 feeding sessions daily, all before 12:00, so we make sure that we get there bright and early so as not to miss the first session. Half the population of Denham not surprisingly seem to have also done the same thing, so there are plenty of people about, but the Rangers are well practised at crowd control and the unruly mob is transformed into an orderly assembly in no time. Feeding of the dolphins here started in the 60s when fisherfolk would feed those who followed the boats in. Dolphins are smart creatures and it did not take long for them to catch on that if you followed the boats in you would get a free feed. Over time of course this morphed into a tourist attraction and needless to say the wild dolphins became dependent upon humans for food and started to behave badly and lose their natural hunting and feeding instinct, with spiralling detrimental impacts of course. To arrest this problem, the department of parks and wildlife took over the feeding program and by carefully limiting the quantities fed to individual dolphins they have managed to ensure that the free feed must be supplemented through natural hunting. A pretty good compromise I think which allows this fantastic interaction to continue with minimal detrimental impact to the wildness of the dolphins.

In actual fact there is really not a lot of interaction between visitors and dolphins. The visitors are lined up close to the water's edge and the feeding takes place about 20 feet further out, so you really are just watching these animals take fish from a ranger, with a handful of visitors chosen at random to come in and feed a fish to a dolphin. It is a wonderful experience nonetheless to watch these beautiful intelligent animals at close quarters. After watching the dolphins eat, we decide we need to do likewise and enjoy some coffee and cake at the nearby resort cafe. This indulgence of course means that we need to walk it off, so we take a lovely walk along the beach for a few kilometres. When we return some time after midday (after dolphin feeding has concluded), the place s almost deserted, which is nice because we have the beach to ourselves. We came to Monkey Mia 15 years ago with our children, and Beth remembers well our son having a beatiful incidental encounter with a dolphin as he swam in the shallows. This of course meant that we needed to don our togs and take a dip on the off chance that 15 years later the same would happen for us. Needless to say nothing of the sort happened. I expected more to be pinched by crabs or to encounter a sea snake, but neither of these happened either, we just had quite a pleasant swim.

Francois Peron National Park lies just north of Denham and extends about 60 kilometres to Cape Peron which although not the western most part of the Australian mainland is pretty close. This park is 4wd access only, and when we ask at the tourist information office what the tracks are like, the response "rough and sandy" causes me to quake with fright. We have forded rivers, climbed over rocks and navigated ribbons of mud in our Jeep, but sand has been carefully avoided to date. The few minor encounters we have had with sand to date have been a bit scary, very little control over where the vehicle is going, but you know if you get it wrong you will either be bogged or flip the car over. Despite our trepidation we venture out, and whilst the driving was certainly shall we say challenging at times, we managed to cover all the tracks in the park, and they were certainly rough, and certainly sandy. Again the Jeep came through with flying colours. The outlook at Cape Peron was outstanding with vivid reds, greens, whites and blues everywhere, and the views from the platform at Skipjack Point down into the shallows to observe the sealife was riveting. We stood and watched turtles, manta rays, sharks and a myriad other fish (no obvious dugongs, no whales and no dolphins unfortunately) for about an hour, then Beth took her turn to tackle sand (which of course she did effortlessly).

We wondered about spending another night at Denham, but decided instead to visit the aquarium on our way out of town and that would probably be enough for this visit. The aquarium was interesting and a nice lazy bit of touristy stuff. We jumped in the car and set off only to realize that we had not really agreed on where we were going. Our initial thought was to head for Mullewa in the wheat belt for any wildflowers that might be remaining, but this was quite a drive, so we were not sure. We decided instead to head to one of our favourite WA locations, the coastal town of Kalbarri on the Murchison River halfway between Shark Bay and Geraldton. We visited and loved Kalbarri on our honeymoon about 30 years ago, and visited again with our children 15 years ago, so if all goes well this time, it is likely that we will be back here in 2029.

Kalbarri is a wonderful location. The town itself, whilst quite nice, is nothing to write home about. The real beauty lies in the river gorges inland and the beautiful wild coastline. We revisited all the sites of 30 years ago, and whilst without exception they are all much more accessible than they were then, they are just as beautiful today. The loop, a 9 km walk on the Murchison River is quite spectacular, as is the Z bend walk down to the river, which involves one of my favourite pastimes, clambering over rocks. There are a series of beautiful coastal sites south of Kalbarri, all easily accessible from the road allegedly. I wouldn't know because Beth determined that taking the coastal cliff top walk between these sites was a better option. We walked almost the entire length (and return) of the 8km Bigurda Trail, and despite my grumbling about the wind (too strong), the sun (too hot), the sand (too soft) and the rocks (too uneven), secretly I was rejoicing because this is one of the more beatiful walks I have encountered anywhere. The cliffs and gorges are magnificent and the ocean crashing into them is just awesome, but even better still was the stunning variety of coastal wildflowers, which caused me to frequently fall well behind Beth as I stopped, admired and photographed. Kalbarri is simply stunningly beautiful. Something as beautiful as this in Europe would draw an ongoing stream of tourists, but for the entire length of the Bigurda Trail, we did not encounter another human being. It is good to be back in Australia.

From Kalbarri we will make our way to Mullewa and whatever wildflowers are left, then slowly wander down through the goldfields.