Day 3. Kalbarri to Monkey Mia (425 km)
We greet the 3rd day of clear blue skies and hot sun of the west coast in Kalbarri National Park which boasts some scenic gorges on the Murchison River. But before you get to see the beautiful gifts of the Mother Nature, you need to pass a test drive of some 30 km on a dirt road. Only the bold and the beautiful get to see the impressive gorges of the Loop and Z-Bend. But before you get to see the best bits of these river cliffs, there’s just another little thing you have to fight with, and heavily fight with. The terribly annoying ‘let me fly in from your nose and out from your mouth’ flies. However, the views are worth a thousand flies. A narrow red dirt walking track takes you through the bush and awards you with some amazing views through the Nature’s Window, a rock formation on the edge of the river bend. The weather in the Outback is hot and demanding. Demanding 3 litres of water a day. And water is a deficit on this continent.
Today is my driving day. And I’ve got no problem with it. Brand new automatic cars are my favourites :D We stop at the Overlander Roadhouse to feed Mr Four Wheels and have a refreshing ice-cream, both meals cost us more than anywhere else so far. The lack of competition in WA. The further north you head, the longer the distances stretch between settlements and roadhouses and, seemingly, no matter how far you travel in a day, it’s a mere thumbnail on a map of the immense west coast. And if you are 300 km away from the next town, and need water to drink or petrol to feed your car, there’s no such thing as ‘too expensive’, moreover, because it won’t be better in the next place up.
Tonight’s destination is Monkey Mia in Shark Bay World Heritage and Marine Park. Not quite sure where the name comes from because the bay is world-famous for the bottlenose dolphins that turn up like a clock-work every day, but perhaps the sharks are around as well. The 130km detour off the highway to get to Denham, the most westerly town in Australia, and the close-by Monkey Mia, is long, straight and a bit boring in most part, but passes by some interesting sites, such as the Hamelin Pool and Shell Beach. The first one is a marine reserve containing the world’s best-known colony of stromatolites, microbes that are almost identical to organisms that existed 1900 million years ago and evolved into more complex life. Hmm. Honestly, it’s rather hard to imagine these rock-alike creatures in the shallow water have any life at all, but then again aren’t corals the same! The other quite spectacular beach in the bay is the stunning Shell Beach where the cockleshells are 10m deep in some places and the water is crystal-clear and only knee-deep for at least 100m out. Imagine millions of white shells instead of sand grains.. forming a white beach as far as your eyes can see. That’s one of the kind. The sun has set by the time we arrive in Denham and we are eager to find a shelter and a place to cook a pasta dish for dinner. Fully-booked says the lady at the backpackers’ and recommends a hotel-motel down the road. A real Aussie outback motel-bar where a bald tattooed Farmer John (names changed :)) offers us a twin-bedded room for the 3 of us. Well, he might think Tobias has a lucky night and two beds are enough – probably a common late night scene at the motel, but he’s wrong.. this time. Farmer John is a nice dude though and calls the Monkey Mia Resort for us to see if they have any vacancies, and we are lucky to get the last spare room in the town that is not actually a town. The little spot on the Aussie map is actually just a resort and beachfront, and the road ends where the resorts begins. So if you want to meet the famous dolphins on their morning feeding session, the Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort is the place to be..
And it’s a nice place to be, offering up some very schmick accommodation that caters for both ends of the market. We categorize ourselves as backpackers though, and take a 4-bed dorm, which is actually a very nice little room in a wooden beachside house with a cool Monkey Bar, Pool and Beer Garden. We cook pasta al tonno e pomodoro for dinner and get a whole beef lasagna on top of it from the tour guys that we met at Kalbarri last night. They’ve made their way up to Monkey Mia and have probably shopped with hunger getting more than they can eat. We don’t mind. Or is it too much pasta for one night? Naah!! :)
Day 4. Monkey Mia to Carnarvon (355 km)
The morning in Monkey Mia starts early, almost at the sunrise. We get up, take a quick shower and head on to the beach just 10 steps from our beach house. It’s where everybody’s going. The dolphins are so popular in these days that the morning feeding session can be a bit of a circus, but you’ll get a good look at these attractive creatures. There’s a swimming area next to the interaction zone. If you’re lucky, a dolphin might join you for a swim. We aren’t.. But we spend such a relaxing morning on the beach just lying in the sun and taking baths in the clear and salty ocean water. I like the Indian. It’s calm, which makes it easy to swim. And salty enough, so all you do is just float and let the little currents carry you slowly along the shore. That’s if you swim in the right direction, not against the current :) As the lunch time is approaching, seven enormous pelicans line up on the beach waiting for their food. Some fish is cleared on the beach. Perhaps they know, as the well-trained dolphins, that there’s something to get each day at the same time. They are lazy and used to the people sunbathing, swimming or taking photos on the beach – a great chance to get up close with these huge birds. However, they can be quite choosy.. One lazy female, for example, doesn’t look very keen on getting personal with Tobias trying to move himself closer to the bird to get a better look, whereas they make some space for me to join them on the afternoon sunbathing session.
The afternoon takes us further north again. It’s a long drive to our next spot of interest – Coral Bay, so we decide to cut it half and make a stopover in Carnarvon at the mouth of the Gascoyne River. We are late and the sun is faster than us. And the sunset is a rather interesting time to be on the road. Watch out! It’s getting wild. Three pairs of eyes are highly concentrated 360 degrees. Tobias is driving, with me and Ann reporting the road conditions. ‘Three wild coats of the left!’ ‘Oh, a kangaroo on the right!’ ‘Five more coats!’ ‘Something on the left again!’ ‘Oh no, dead animal on the road! In the middle!’ ‘That was close!’ 50 km/h is as hard as we can push, and we are still far away from the town. We aren’t expecting to arrive in less than an hour, or two, or three.. But we’re lucky. The wildlife goes to sleep and we follow a road train, that should protect us from the wildest that could happen, and make it safely to Carnarvon. A sleepy fruit-picking town where the main attraction is a lack of attractions and you’ll probably learn more about a banana than you ever though possible. Relying on the Lonely Planet, we step in the Port Hotel and ask for accommodation. This night we’re going back in time. Tobias thinks he’s back in the Eastern Germany and it’s the 80s. We can probably relate to something at home as well. Nja, the 80’s. The three options for dinner are the leftovers from a football match at the hotel bar, Fish & Chips down the road or Woolies (what’s Woolies doing in this place?!) across the street. I give you one chance to guess what we choose. While we run to the supermarket that was supposed to be closing 5 minutes ago (and make it!), Tobias has again too options: come and get some food with us, or trust us with the selection and go do the same turbo shopping in the bottle shop. And again you have one chance to guess what he does. And I’m sure you won’t be wrong :) Some wine will probably give the place a whole new perspective. Or I guess we’re just spoilt, ‘cause Monkey Mia got our expectations way too high. Hey, back to the reality!
Day 5. Carnarvon to Coral Bay (200 km)
It’s the day we’ve all been waiting for. Coral Bay. Snorkelling on the west-coast reef, a rival to the Great Barrier Reef in beauty and biodiversity and far more accessible. The Ningaloo Reef is famous for its corals but not only. It’s the only place in the world where the giant whale sharks reliably appear every year. The largest fish in the world, it can weigh up to 21 tonnes and reach up to 18m long, but this gentle giant is content to feed on plankton and small fish. So unless you’re one of them, you’re safe :) The road to Coral Bay takes you through the Outback,.. desert, which almost gives you the feeling of visiting the namesake in Egypt. There would be nothing if it wasn’t for the reef. But somewhere at the southern end of Ningaloo Marine Park, above the Tropic of Capricorn lies a tiny, chilled out community where coral reefs are just of the town beach. That town is made up from five different accommodation, 2 shops, some cafés, a service station and a tour booking office. A village doctor visits the place once a week and all the rest is hundreds of kms away.
It’s a high season. Whale sharks are in town, and so are the tourists. Everything is fully booked and the only place to sleep is literally under the stars. Which we also do :) And to be honest, I sleep quite well! From dusk till dawn.. in a warm sleeping bag on the soft sand. Although I could have waken up cast away in the middle of the ocean because of the high tide or eaten up by the ants like Ann, the ocean is generous and ants don’t like me. Tonight.. Viva la Outback! :D
Day 6. Coral Bay to Exmouth (160 km)
I open my eyes at 4, 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning (it’s dark and I can’t see my watch). One of the three boats on the beach has turned lights on. I lift my head and see a few people bustling onboard, probably preparing to go out on a tour. I can’t see the sun. It must be too early for the sunrise.. I pull the sleeping bag over my head and fall back asleep. We all get up at 7. There’s no sun. It’s cloudy :(
It’s now 10ish. We’ve had shower and a cup of coffee at the local bakery. We’re just about to give up on the great idea to go snorkeling again, when the sky slowly starts to clear up. By noon, when we’ve rented the snorkeling gear, it’s all blue, as if there never were any clouds in the clear sky of Coral Bay. The next 3 hours are just perfect – swimming and snorkeling, sunbathing and relaxing.. Moments that we’ve saved.. both in our memories and in 100 photos :)
A short drive north to Exmouth is waiting for us in the afternoon. Due to the extraordinary sleeping conditions of the last night, we’ve decided to find a bed for tonight. The town of wandering emus, palm trees laden with screeching cockatoos and a burning sun sounds promising. Tobias is hoping to go out (it’s been a while since we left Perth and its great nightlife :)) He looks a little bit disappointed when on closer inspection the wandering emus and screeching cockatoos are the only really inhabitants to party with. We cheer him up though.. with a bottle of red wine and a pot of delicious pasta :)
Day 7. Exmouth to Tom Price – Karijini (600 km)
The Ningaloo Caravan and Holiday Resort, where we're staying in Exmouth, is not bad. It has a great outdoor swimming pool, perfect for a refreshing morning swim and for recharging batteries before the long 600km drive through the red Pilbara desert. We are an hour late.. doing laundry. The drier in the laundry room refuses to work, but luckily the burning sun of Exmouth is hotter than ever and comes in handy. We finally take off and I drive the first 300 km. We change at Nanutarra Roadhouse and Ann drives the next bit. We turn off the highway, our destination is Tom Price – a little mining town and gateway to Karijini National Park.
It’s nearly sunset when we come to the crossroads with two options: 131km of sealed road via Paraburdoo or 68km of unsealed road straight to Tom Price. If you’re dying for adventure in the pure Aussie way, go for the last one. Forget about the 4WD, 2W will do the job :) That’s if you are an experienced driver. You drive cars, cows and floods. You can handle 10 cows ready to attack any minute if you don’t get off their way. You can drive the car on the road and navigate it in the water. You can do all that in the darkest darkness and the wildest wilderness, and the fact that the next service is some 60km away boosts your adrenaline.
That’s if you don’t miss your turn-off, because the road then continues to Wittenoom, a ghost town officially classified as ‘abandoned’ and doesn’t even appear on some maps, as a result of a series of deaths linked to the local blue asbestos mine. However, some hardy residents have refused to depart, and they offer accommodation, tours and counterpropaganda on the alleged dangers of the town. Hmm. We won’t miss the turn-off, will we?
I’m doing brekky shifts this week. Wakey-wakey at sunrise, work at 6. Rise and shine for the next 5 days, K! :)
Day 2 @ work
