Loo with a View

The journey to Carnarvon took three and bit hours, not including our breakfast stop. We tossed a coin and decided to stay at the Top Tourist Park, called the Wintersun. The park was almost empty, save a few backpackers and permanents and although we had been allocated a site, we ended up setting up on the site next door (easier access and a better concrete pad.)

I got straight into the "boy stuff" like getting the filtered water going into our tanks, setting up the awning and so on, while Sue busied herself with the washing. A quick trip into town for some fresh produce, replacement lures and fuel ensued, and then it was back to the caravan park for lunch. Fresh bread, for the first time since we left Cossack,was a treat to be savoured. Sue has cooked bread in the past, but for this trip we were making do with cracker biscuits, rye crispbreads and similar.

The afternoon was filled in by doing some small jobs that crop up while travelling and before I knew it, it was time to start preparing dinner. With all of the fresh produce that I had just purchased, what else could we have but a fresh Laksa? On  this occasion I used chicken as the base for the Laksa, but we often have a mix of prawns, fish and squid. Aromas from the freshly crushed garlic, ginger, lemongrass, basil, chili and onions wafted on the breezed, inviting more than one comment from passers-by.

As always, the laksa was excellent and was washed down with a couple of quiet bevvies. Over dinner we had decided to head north the following morning. Initially we were going to make for Gnaraloo Station, but while talking with two separate groups of people at the caravan park in Cararvon, we were put off the idea. It seems that the entry fee is $20.00 per person and for that you get a site that is some distance from the beach, some salt-water showers and long-drop dunnies.

Plan B was to go up the same road, but only as far as Red Bluff and this is where we headed after a good night's sleep and a cup of freshly brewed coffee the next morning. To get to Red Bluff, you must travel north on the North West Coastal Highway until you reach the turn-off to the "Blowholes". For us, this meant back-tracking a bit, heading back toward Warra,  but we didn't mind - this was all new territory for us.

A well made bitumen road slides under your wheels all the way to the Blowholes and we made good time getting there. You know you are getting close when you see the lighthouse on the hill. We parked in the spacious parking area, giving ourselves enough room to drive in and out again, without having to do any reversing manoeuvres. We each served ourselves a bowl of cereal and walked the short distance to where the blowhole was pumping its powerful surges of foam, spray and scree into the air.

The wind was strong and the sea was angry, making conditions for spectacular eruptions just perfect. Sue backed away fairly soon (she was feeling cold), leaving me to wander as close as I dared to the source of the noisy explosions of water. There are signs everywhere about King Waves and how many people have died either fishing from, or viewing, the blowholes and I wasn't about to become a statistic. I watched the blowhole and I watched the approaching waves. On one occasion I literally ran away from the edge as a very large set of waves approached the craggy shoreline and crashed onto the rocks.

I decided to get one of the cameras (the least expensive one on this occasion as I didn't want to get the SLR camera covered in salty spray) and walked back as close as I dared. Unfortunately, the very large waves that I saw earlier had put the wind up me and I had to stand well back and use the zoom function to take my snaps. As a result, I didn't get the spectacular shots that I was hoping for, but even at that distance I was forced to make a couple of dashes further from the edge, in order to prevent myself from being soaked to the skin by the enormous waves that battered the coast.

This explosion of water was almost 10 metres high

Mission accomplished, we piled into the vehicle and took a drive around the camping area at the Blowholes. The official camp area is a few kilometres south of the Blowholes themselves. It consists of a series of tracks that meander along the coast, just back from the fringing rocks and dunes. Interspersed along these tracks are shacks that have "evolved" over the years as locals from Carnarvon have cobbled together makeshift rooms with whatever building materials were at hand.

This higgledy piggledy array of dishevelled buildings we almost all occupied at the time that we visited - it was school holidays after all. Most of the occupants were keeping sheltered from the incessant winds that had announced their presence at Warra the previous day. Who could blame them? We had seen enough and decided that we didn't rate this site as worthwhile for spending time there on this occasion, so we turned north and followed the corrugated road north in the direction of Quobba Station.

Now, I don't want to put people off, but this road clearly only gets a licking with a grader about once per year. It was in very poor nick and progress was very slow. We were relieved every time the coast appeared on our left and was picturesque enough to warrant a photograph or two. Stopping brought a sense of sheer relief to our pummelled backsides.

Scenery like this gave us an opportunity to rest our bums after the pounding we were getting on the road up to Red Bluff.

We also took a detour to have a look at the wreck of the Korean Star, a ship that ran aground at Cape Cuvier many years ago. Unfortunately, we were unable to see any signs of the ship's carcass due, I guess, to the constant pounding of the huge seas. What we did see, however, was quite remarkable. As we stood high on the cliffs that overlook the salt loading facility for Rio Tinto's salt mine at Lake McLeod, we saw the tiny shapes of two intrepid fishermen below us. (Yes, I used the gender specific term "fishermen" because they were, in fact, men - so please don't call the PC Police onto me.) What was so remarkable about that, I hear you ask? Well, one of the fellows was leaning back real hard, obviously hooked up to an enormous fish. The rod was bent severely and he was clearly not using light fishing tackle.

Click on this image to enlarge it. Take note about a third of the way in from the left and a third down from the top. That's what he was hooked into!

Another Couple, whom had been watching the fishermen for about half an hour before we got there, pointed out a short distance from the shore and there it was....a whacking great Tiger Shark, obviously hooked and struggling to make good its escape. Nearby were a further three Tiger Sharks of similar proportions (at least 3 metres in length) and these sharks were shadowing the hooked shark. Apparently the battle between shark and man had gone on for at least the half hour that the other Couple were watching and continued for another 15 minutes as we watched. The shark was showing signs of tiring, but not enough that the two guys could demonstrate clear superiority while they were taking it in turns to break their backs as they tried to subdue this monster of a fish.

We gave up watching before the battle was over,but one could assume that at some point the fishermen would have cut the line and let the fish go, because there was absolutely no way that they would have been able to haul it up the rocks (and why would they want to?)

I might add that this entertaining display was probably all that made the diversion into Cape Cuvier worth the trouble. While it is certainly scenic and, in some respects interesting to see the salt wharf, the track itself was abysmal and I certainly wouldn't drag the caravan over it again. You have been warned!

Back onto the main road ( if one can call it that), we bumped and bashed ourselves along until finally reaching the welcome turn-off into Red Bluff. Just two minutes into the trip off the main road and we found ourselves trying to invent a ratings system for roads that basically worked on a scale of  "Pretty Bad" down to "You're Kidding, Right?" The track into Red Bluff was closer to the "You're Kidding, Right?" end of the scale - actually, it would probably be the benchmark for setting the "You're Kidding, Right" value to all future roads (tracks?) that we traverse.

Many of you will know that feeling you get when you just want to turn around and drive back out before you get to a place, just because the road is so bad. Well, I had that feeling, but it is always accompanied by the thought "If we turn around now, we have endured this God-forsaken nightmare for nothing." And so we soldiered on. Finally, we saw the Bluff in the distance. We had driven many kilometres north on the main road, only to find ourselves back-tracking to the south along the crappy Station track that would take us to the campground. The Bluff was still many kilometres further south of us and took a considerable amount of extra time to reach.

You know you are getting close to the campground when you start to see small clearings beside the track, each accompanied by a strange looking shelter made from Palm fronds. We had no idea what these structures were, but were soon to find out. The twisting, turning, corrugated, track continued until we found ourselves outside the "Homestead", which I believe is actually an outstation of Quobba Station itself.

Sue went in and paid for two night's accommodation (at $11.00 per person per night), while I tried to figure out where to turn around. I asked the lady whom served us whether there was a place further ahead where we could just simply drive around a "loop" and head back to a campsite that had appealed to us. Apparently there wasn't. "We don't get many caravans in here." was the reply. I'm not surprised, after experiencing the road we just came in on. Tricky reversing and multi-point turning followed, before we successfully found ourselves facing the other direction, without having hit anything in the process.

Did I mention that the West Coast sea breeze was blowing? Well, I should say that it was howling and it forced our hand when it came time to select a camp site. We had little choice but to camp in the lee of a small, low stand of Tamarisk trees. They offered the only protection around, while still giving us the opportunity to view the ocean and the Bluff.

The Tamarisk trees may have been small, but they were the only available shelter from the wind.

While I set about getting the awning rolled out and the all-important corner legs wound down, Sue went exploring. She came back to report that the little shelter made of Palm frond, situated some 20 metres away, was in fact a dunny. Within the flimsy confines of the wire and frond walls was a long-drop dunny - not just your ordinary, everyday long-dropper either - this one was partially filled with sawdust. Next to it was a 20 litre pale of fresh sawdust and a scoop to use to cover your "doings" with a new layer.

The loo with the view.

This marvellous piece of engineering had none of the pongs usually associated with long-droppers, and even had a slight flowery fragrance, obviously the result of something that our hosts tip into the bowels of the thing to abate any evil odours. Poo tickets were provided and they even had hand sanitiser to finish up with. The pièce de résistance of this dunny was the door.....or should I say, the lack of one. While sitting on this loo, going about your business, you are treated to wonderful views of the coastline as it stretches north of our campsite. Could one possibly ask for more, while spending a penny in our rugged north?

The view from the Loo with a view

After setting the van up we set off to explore the area. The Lady was right about there being nowhere to turn the van around. Camper Trailers? Possibly, but not without some manoeuvring. There was no shortage of campsites, just a shortage of "I've changed my mind and want to turn around" spots. Many of the camp areas had a small clump of Tamarisk trees and almost all had the obligatory Red Bluff Long-drop Special. There were three separate "shops" with advertising hoardings promoting all manner of goodies - ice creams, fizzy drinks, pies, pasties, sausage rolls and even fancy coffees - but only one of these places was open, the place where we paid for our stay.

The only beach was almost at the base where the Bluff juts out from the coast and, at best, could be described as risky to swim at. At a certain point  during the tide cycle, a small, natural, rock pool forms on the shoreline which would be the only place that I would let a child swim. Still, people don't generally come to Red Bluff for the swimming - it's the surfing  and fishing that attract the lion's share of the visitors. I was hoping to do a bit of the latter the next morning.

The rest of the afternoon was spent huddled under the awning of the van, trying to get some respite from the howling wind. The only saving grace was that the wind was keeping the temperature down to a respectable range in the mid to high twenties. We had no trouble sleeping that night and Sue even pulled a blanket up to keep warm.

Red Bluff (doesn't look all that red, does it?) in the morning.

Wind? What wind? What I thought was a strong breeze the first day that we were at Red Bluff, must have been nothing more than a mere puff. This is because when we awoke on the second day, the caravan was rocking and rolling as the sheer force of the gale buffeted the body of our home and we even had the corner legs wound down! No, we weren't going through a storm, this was just  the sea breeze blowing with a vengeance. Still, nothing was going to put me off fishing, so I gathered up my gear and made my way to the Bluff.

I walked out to a where the water seemed deep enough and had a promising mix of reef, weed and sand. I rigged with one of the trusty, white, soft plastic lures that had been so effective at Warra and cast it to where I thought it would work its magic. Ha! What a joke! All that happened was that the wind (which was side on to me) caught hold of my very fine, thin, 4 lb  braid line and dragged it at a million miles per hour, causing the soft plastic to skip along the surface rather than sink to where the fish may be.

Several casts later I realised the futility of what I was doing and added a sinker to the nose of the lure. This was still no good. I just couldn't get the lure to sink to where it was needed. OK, off came the lure and on went a hook, a very heavy sinker and some squid for bait. I chucked it in to where I thought would be a likely place for fish to hang out and waited. And waited. And waited......

Not only did I not get a single bite, but the only fish I did see were small and were weed-eaters. I am a patient person when fishing, but after two hours of this I gave the game away and went back to camp. Sue was in the van when I arrived, trying to seek shelter from the wind. We both spent the rest of the day reading, apart from when I ventured back to the Bluff to watch the surfers take on the swells generated by the strong wind. Alas, the surfers had even given in to the wind and none were out plying their trade.

Many of you know that we don't like to cook in our van, especially very fragrant dishes. So, that evening we had to go to elaborate lengths to construct a wind-break around our camp stove so that we could cook dinner. We got it done, but I'm sure that we used twice as much gas as we normally would.

Even though we didn't relish the thought of traversing the crappy track into the Bluff again, it was a better option than hanging around for another day, getting blown off the face of the earth and so it was that we decided to leave as scheduled the next morning, rather than extend our stay. It proved to be a good decision as the winds had not abated overnight.

We bumped and ground our way over the lumps and corrugations, taking over three hours to return to the bitumen at the blowholes, where we stopped and re-inflated our tyres. From there we made our way to Carnarvon, filled with fuel and parked close to the Woollies store to get provisions for the next leg of our journey - Geraldton, via Gladstone (Shark Bay).

While we were at the parking place by Woollies, another vehicle parked close to us and out jumped two people, two dogs and three feather-foot chooks. That's right, they had brought their chooks along for the ride. As it turned out, these folk were camped at Bush Bay, south of Carnarvon and when they come into town for their stores, the entire "family" comes along for the ride. We had been told that Bush Bay was populated by itinerants, and these people confirmed it.

Provisions purchased and stowed, we made our way out of Carnarvon, a place that to me at least, always looks good in the rear-vision mirror of the car. Next stop: Gladstone.....