Crossing WA: Port Hedland - Esperance

It has been almost two weeks since our previous blog. We have been in very remote places without reception or internet connection and therefore we were unable to upload a new blog, but here it is! Since Port Hedland we drove about 2600 km (in comparison: Utrecht - Moscow is 2400 km), from the west coast down south to Esperance. The landscape changed significantly and although it were long days on the road, we also had a lot of fun while driving as well as during the stops we made. It was great to spend New Years Eve in Karijini National Park. It was really one of the highlights of our trip so far. Many people call it the most beautiful NP of Western Australia and this is absolutely true. Perhaps the luxury of a tent in the eco retreat added to the experience. ;-) We also made a couple of beautiful hikes (we climbed the 2nd tallest peak of WA) and we enjoyed passing by all the mining sites (mainly iron ore, but also gold and tin) and mining villages. 

The route we took from Port Hedland to Esperance

Before we started the long drive, we decided to go for a swim in the public pool in Port Hedland. That was a fresh and good start!

A fresh start of the road trip

The first day we drove 260 km to Auski, which is quite closely located to the entrance of Karijini National Park. We camped next to a roadhouse, where hundreds of road trains passed (also during the night). It was very hot and we immediately felt that we should take it quite easy the upcoming week. Luckily it did cool down a bit during the night and the sound of the road trains did not wake us up.

Auski Roadhouse

One of the many road trains 

The next day we drove to Karijini National Park. We woke up early and felt that it was going to be a hot day. We couldn't wait to go for a swim in one of the gorges of the National Park. Before we entered the Park, we stopped at one of the lookout points, which was already amazing. 

Road to Karijini NP 

Albert Tognolini Lookout 

Almost there!

Unfortunately, the visitor center at Karijini NP was closed. It was not really a problem, because we did our research already and did know where we wanted to go. However, it showed us that it was really low season. Not many tourists go to this part of Australia in the summer. It is really hot, but if you take it easy, we could really enjoy the weather and had no issues with the climate. We always carried enough water with us and were in the water/gorges or shadow most of the time. The good thing about low season is that we sometimes had beautiful gorges just to ourselves!

Dales Gorge 

Lookout over the Fortescue Falls

We first visited the Fern Pool, one of our favorite spots in the Park. Although it didn't rain for months, the waterfall was still running. Pretty amazing! Karijini is one of the lower points in the entire area and apparently water slowly finds its way to this amazingly beautiful gorge.

Fern Pool

After the Fern Pool, we drove to the Circular Pool. After a short hike down into the canyon, we were rewarded with a very nice pool to cool down. On the way up, Erik's shoes didn't stand the heat. The rocks were so hot that the glue of his Teva's melted and the sole came off. Whoops! ;-)

Circular Pool

Lookout over Dales Gorge

Beautiful landscape

Circular Pool

After a full day in the water, we decided to drive to our Eco Retreat. We were actually quite excited and were looking forward to two nights of 'glamping'. The guys at the reception were really nice and we had a wonderful time at the Retreat. It felt super luxurious to have a real king size bed and our own shower. The most amazing part of the tent was that we could zip down all the 'walls' of the tent, so it really felt you were outside. In the morning, we could see the sunrise out of our bed. So lovely!

Room service ;-)

Our tent!

Sunrise at 5am

The next day we enjoyed the breakfast at the Eco Retreat (another luxury!) and we drove to the western side of the Park. We made a small hike to the Handrail Pool where we watched a typical Australian family having fun in the water (dad showing his sons how to jump off the (10 meter high) rocks - and they of course followed). ;-)

Hike to the Handrail Pool

Nice walk! 

Handrail Pool

Beautiful spot!

Afterwards, we walked back to our camper van and made ourselves a nice barbecue! With all the public barbecues in the National Park, we of course had to try these.

Walk back to our van

Hello!

Public barbecues everywhere!

In the afternoon we visited the Hancock Gorge, which was accessible via a short hike with a couple of ladders, some swimming and/or spider-walking (see picture below). We really liked this adventurous hike. It was not too difficult for us and of course we stopped where the route ended (at the Kermit Pool). Later that night we learned that every year a couple of tourists die in this part of the gorge, because they do not obey the signs and continue walking on the cliffs where the route ends... Very sad...

On our way to Hancock Gorge

Partly on ladders

Avoiding getting wet feet

Are we going to swim or spider-walking? 

Spider-walking!!

After we cooled down in the Kermit Pool, we drove to the Oxers Lookout, where four gorges (Red, Weano, Joffre and Hancock) come together. This junction is pretty impressive and the water is about 130 m below. 

Oxers Lookout

Since it was the 31st of December, we celebrated NYE! We signed up for the barbecue buffet (yeah, another barbecue!) in the afternoon and had a couple of beers with some of the other guests (including - of course - two girls from Holland) and the owner/employees at the Eco Retreat. In the night, we didn't have any fireworks (it's forbidden because of the bush fires), but instead we enjoyed the many shooting stars.

Barbecue buffet

Yammie! 

Happy new year!!! 

The next day we visited the last part of Karijini, which was the Knox Gorge. This gorge was located very close to the Eco Retreat, so we could easily walk there. We took a long swim there (in the 'Olympic Pool', before we headed in the direction of Tom Price.

Knox Gorge

Our New Year's dive! 

Knox Lookout

Beautiful landscape

From Karijini, we drove to Tom Price to get refueled and filled our water tanks with drinking water as well. We spend the night at the RIP lookout, which was relatively close to Mount Bruce. This mountain is the 2nd tallest mountain in Western Australia (1234m) and - although we were doubting for a couple of days - we decided that we were going to climb to the summit. :-) 

RIP Lookout close to Tom Price

Here we spend the night - just the two of us

Enjoying a cold beer while preparing our dinner   

As we were making our plans, we carefully checked the weather forecast for Mt Bruce. The good thing was, that it was cooling down in the night (to about 23 degrees). During the day, it would become 37 degrees. Therefore, we wanted to be at the summit of the mountain before 9am, before it really started to get hot. That meant that we had to wake up early (we set the alarm at 4.45am). Early morning (even before sunrise) we woke up, we had our cup of coffee and breakfast, prepared our lunch, drove to the mountain with sunrise and started our hike at 6am.

Weather forecast for Mt Bruce

Driving to Mt Bruce with the sunrise

Getting closer to Mt Bruce

Start of our hike

The interesting part of this hike was that on the one hand we had the beautiful landscape of Karijini National Park, while at the other hand there was a huge mining site. We really enjoyed this hike, which was maybe one of the nicest hikes we did so far in Australia. 

Sign explaining the mining activities in this region

Mining Site

Beautiful scenery 

Clear walking paths

Summit still far away...

Quite a climb ahead of us!

Very steep part 

Almost half way 

Spectacular views along the way

Another steep part with dangerous cliffs

Taking a short break to enjoy the view

After two hours of hiking, we were at the top of Mt Bruce. The view was amazing and the temperature still very nice. We were so happy that we decided to do it!!

At the top! 

Enjoying the view from the summit 

We made it! :)

Beautiful views

View at Karijini National Park

Nice birds following us

We took 7 liters of water and finished it all!

After our adventure in Mt Bruce, we drove to Newman where we made a quick stop at a large Haul Truck that was used in the mining industry. 

Unfortunately it was not allowed to go in... ;-)

So huge!

We planned to make a stop at one of the best restaurants in the area (10 km out of Newman) and to camp at a 24h rest stop nearby. Unfortunately, when we arrived there, we found out it was closed... Therefore we had dinner at a roadhouse nearby and we slept in our van at the car park. The roadhouse had nice showers and an airconditioned room where we could make use of, so it was in the end not bad at all! 

Having dinner at the roadhouse

Camping at the car park of the roadhouse

The next day we woke up early because it was very hot and we drove all the way to Mount Magnet (more than 600 km). We made a stop for our lunch at Meekatharra and passed another small village with many heritage buildings. 

The highlight of the day: lunch at Meekatharra!

Bar where we had lunch

The tiny village Cue

We checked the weather forecast when we arrived in Mount Magnet, and since it was going to be very hot during the night, we decided to book a cabin for one night. In the end, it proved to be a very good decision, since the temperature at 10pm was still 37 degrees! We enjoyed the airconditioning and a good night sleep and we were ready for a long drive the next day. 

Our cabin on the right

Refueling at Paynes Find

Picnic time!

We drove all the way to York, a nice town with restored heritage buildings. We stayed at a free camp spot next to a park in town. There were five other cars with big caravans staying there as well. No longer the only ones! ;-) We made use of the public barbecue and made a short walk in the village.  

  

Town Hall of York 

Phone booth 

Main street in York

Free camping spot 

Nice sunset

Since we were moving south, the temperature was going down again and we had a good night sleep. We even needed our sleeping bags again! ;-) The next day we drove to the south coast via Wave Rock, a multicolored rock that was formed some 60 million years ago by weathering and water erosion. We made a short walk and started at Hippos Yawn and had a picnic next to the rock. Afterwards, we continued our drive to Hopetoun. 

Hippo Yawn

Picnic at Wave Rock

Wave Rock

Surfing the Wave Rock 

Wave Rock

After lunch, we drove from Wave Rock to Hopetoun (another 250 km) and decided to stay at one of the bush camps of Fitzgerald River National Park. Since we bought at the beginning of our trip a WA National Park Pass, we don't have to pay for any NP, only for the camping fees. We were amazed by the camp site. Public barbecues even had a stove next to it, and everything was brand new! 

Entrance of Gitzgerald River National Park

Paying our fees for the camp site

Camp kitchen at Four Mile Campground

Tadaa!!

You might think that we barbecue a lot. That is true. But apart from the fact that we both like to barbecue, it is also a very practical addition to our little kitchen in our camper van. We have only one stove and although we became quite experts in cooking pasta and rice dishes on one stove, the barbecue is a very welcome alternative! After dinner we made a short walk on the beach and watched the sunset. It felt good to be back at the beach again. :-)

Sunset at Four Mile Beach

The next day we decided to relax and do nothing. After a couple long days of driving, we needed to relax and take it easy. We went to Barrens Beach and enjoyed reading a book all full day. 

Barrens Beach

Beautiful beach next to East Mount Barren 

How we spend most of the day :-)

At the end of the day we drove to Hamersley Inlet, where we stayed for two more nights. Although our original plan was to stay here just for one day to relax, we liked the NP so much that we ended up staying three nights here. We were quite lucky, because we took the last site at the camp. After us the camp site was full! 

Hamersley Inlet

Our neighbors at the camp site (Rick and Christy) were really nice. They were two farmers in their fifties who sold their property and decided to travel in Australia for a while. We spoke about one of the hikes in the National Park and decided to team up together. Our original plan was to walk about 20 km from the camp site (Hamersley Inlet) to The Rocks Lookout (9.8 km one way) depending on how we would feel. The hike was absolutely beautiful, with stunning views and amazing scenery. We had lunch at the beach of Whalebone Creek (9 km) and we felt still pretty good and that's why we decided to hike all the way to the end of the trail: Quoin Head (15 km one way). We really had a good time with the four of us. In the end, we hiked 30.8 km and it took us 9.5 hours. 

Hamersley Inlet 

Part of the hike was on the beach

Rough coastline

Erik and Rick

Beautiful views 

Hiking trail through the dunes 

First lookout (Tamala Karst)

Whalebone Creek

Absolutely stunning

One of the goanna's we spotted

Rough coastline

End of the trail: Quoin Head Lookout!

The four of us!

When we just started heading back to Hamersley Inlet (we had about 3.5 more hours to go), we saw an amazing nest on top of the rocks. It was huge and Christy already said that it is probably from an eagle. Just when we passed by, the eagle came out of its nest and flew vertically up in the air. It was so nice to see! What a cool present for us! 

The eagle

 Nest of the eagle

The trail we did was named after one of the National Park's flora, the Royal Hakea. We saw it growing in many places along the trail and was the trail's signature emblem as well.  

Royal Hakea

Preparing our one-stove dinner: we were pretty hungry!

The next day we decided to relax. Our legs needed some rest and we went to the (rather salty) Inlet first, where Erik took a swim and we red our books.

Almost like the dead sea ;-)

Reading my book

My view :-) 

We also drove to Cave Point and West Beach, where we made some pictures and our legs allowed still a short walk to the beach. 

West Beach 

One more selfie :-)

From Fitzgerald National Park we drove yesterday to Esperance, and that's where we are right now. 

Writing our blog in Esperance

Esperance will be our home-base for the next week. There is lots to see in this area and we look forward to further explore this part of Australia. The weather is perfect, a bit cooler than up north (28-32 degrees during the day and around 15-20 degrees during the night). Probably the map we add to our next blog will have the size of the Netherlands (instead of all the way to Moscow). ;-) 

On Monday we will check-in at our Airbnb here in Esperance, where we will stay till Friday. The reading committee of my PhD approved my thesis (jeeeaah!) and I would like to make some final adjustments to my book before I send it to the printer. I also have to work on two articles that I need to resubmit to the journals by the end of January. While I will be working, Erik will explore the surfing scene and probably takes some lessons. 

We will keep you updated! 

Big hugs and kisses,

Erik & Annemarie