Australia Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Week 114: Carnarvon to Exmouth

We were luck to be staying in Carnarvon with Mex and Chie at the start of this week, we hung around the town, taking long walks and doing some work in Mex’s garden in return for her letting us camp there. The town doesn’t have much to offer in terms of entertainment but the people are really awesome, everyone we met was really kind and welcoming, but after almost a week of waiting there we were ready to leave. If we had been working there it would have been a nice place to stay, but we weren’t.

Western Australia

The group we had met last week was now split into three separate groups, with a plan to meet again later on the journey. The remaining two members of the group had been working in a farm in Carnarvon for five days to get some extra cash. They were picking leaves from grape vines so that the farmer could easily spray the grapes with whatever chemicals he planned to spray on them. So on Wednesday Ryan and V came to collect us in their car. We drove up to Coral bay and stayed there for a couple of days. Coral Bay is a small town on the coast, next to a beautiful bay, which as the name suggests, is full of coral. We tried to do some fishing in a nearby bay but were unsuccessful, luckily there were some real fishermen next to us who were catching lots of fish easily, so they gave us some fish which we cooked on the beach before we left town.

Western Australia

From Coral Bay we headed further north to another town called Exmouth, this town is on the edge of a national park called Cape Range. The park has some beautiful gorges and small mountains, but the main attraction is Ningaloo reef, a large reef stretching along the coast. There is a lot of wildlife in the park and I managed to photograph my first emu, kangaroo and echidna. We snorkelled on some awesome beaches and I managed to get some video footage of a turtle that we snorkelled with, so that should be included in a YouTube video at some point. After a couple of nights staying in the park we are now headed inland to another national park called Karijini, where there are some more great gorges to hike through, should be great!

Western Australia

Australia Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Week 113: Changing groups, the Kindness of Strangers

Last weekend we were staying in Shark Bay, saw the dolphins being fed on the beach and camped at a lookout where you can see dugong, sharks and dolphins swimming in the bay. From there we took a couple of days to travel up the coast to Carnarvon, but on the way we had to spend the night in a rest area because Dave didn’t like to drive after 2pm. I worked here for a few days while I was working for the Department of Water, so I knew a little about what the town has to offer. We took an afternoon to explore the beach and walk down ‘1 mile jetty’.

Western Australia

We then drove 50km inland to a campsite called Rocky Pool, the river flows underground for most of its length, but this campsite is next to a section which you can swim in. We camped here for a couple of days, walked around the pool, swam and generally chilled out. We wanted to head north to Exmouth from there but stopped in Carnarvon to get some shopping. We had been having some problems within the group up to this point, but we had all been trying to get along and see the positive elements of our time together, so when we stopped in Carnarvon, I walked around with Ben and we decided that we should leave the campervan. The only problem was that we didn’t have any place to stay or any way to continue travelling north.

Western Australia

We checked out the prices of rooms in the hostels, which were expensive, sent out CouchSurfing requests and checked Gumtree for other groups to share a ride with, but nothing was working, so we decided to get some beer to drink while we thought about it. We walked through the town, met a Japanese girl called Chie, in the street, we asked her where the nearest bottle shop (off license) was. After speaking to her for a couple of minutes, we told her about our situation and she invited us to stay at her place, with our tents in her garden. Chie lives with Nana Mex, of the Global Thunda Network, a website for Australian music. We agreed and invited her for a beer to celebrate, this is when we met a group of people on the beach. They are a group of 8, who have been travelling together in 2 cars and a van. They are a mixed group (French, Italian, Austrian, Belgian and English), musicians and hippy types, we told them about our situation and they invited us to join them. They will spend some time in Carnarvon before heading north, so we will hang around here getting to know our new friends.

Western Australia